About the Authors

Andrea Slusser-Nore

Affiliations Department of Pathology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America, Department of Basic Sciences, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America

Jennifer L. Larson-Casey

Affiliation Department of Medicine, Division of Pulmonary, Allergy and Critical Medicine, the University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America

Ruowen Zhang

Affiliation Department of Pathology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America

Xu Dong Zhou

Affiliation Department of Pathology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America

Seema Somji

Affiliation Department of Pathology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America

Scott H. Garrett

Affiliation Department of Pathology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America

Donald A. Sens

Affiliation Department of Pathology, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America

Jane R. Dunlevy

jane.dunlevy@med.und.edu

Affiliation Department of Basic Sciences, School of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of North Dakota, Grand Forks, North Dakota, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: DAS AS-N JLL-C SS SHG JRD. Performed the experiments: AS-N JLL-C RZ XDZ SS JRD. Analyzed the data: AS-N JLL-C RZ XDZ SHG SS DAS JRD. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: DAS SHG SS XDZ JRD. Wrote the paper: DAS AS-N JLL-C SS JRD.