About the Authors

Qinlong Liu

Affiliations Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America, The Second Affiliated Hospital of Dalian Medical University, Dalian, Liaoning Province, China

Yasodha Krishnasamy

Affiliation Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America

Hasibur Rehman

Current address: Department of Biology, Faculty of Sciences, University of Tabuk, Tabuk, Saudi Arabia

Affiliation Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America

John J. Lemasters

Affiliations Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America, Department of Biochemistry & Molecular Biology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, United States of America

Rick G. Schnellmann

Affiliations Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America, Ralph H. Johnson Veterans Affairs Medical Center, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America

Zhi Zhong

zhong@musc.edu

Affiliation Department of Drug Discovery & Biomedical Sciences, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: ZZ. Performed the experiments: QL YK HR ZZ. Analyzed the data: QL YK HR ZZ. Wrote the paper: ZZ JJL RGS.