About the Authors

Inas Helwa

Contributed equally to this work with: Inas Helwa, Jingwen Cai, Michelle D. Drewry

Affiliation Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Jingwen Cai

Contributed equally to this work with: Inas Helwa, Jingwen Cai, Michelle D. Drewry

Affiliation Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Michelle D. Drewry

Contributed equally to this work with: Inas Helwa, Jingwen Cai, Michelle D. Drewry

Affiliation Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Arthur Zimmerman

Affiliation Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Michael B. Dinkins

Affiliation Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Mariam Lotfy Khaled

Affiliation Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Mutsa Seremwe

Affiliation Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

W. Michael Dismuke

Affiliation Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

Erhard Bieberich

Affiliation Department of Neuroscience and Regenerative Medicine, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

W. Daniel Stamer

Affiliations Department of Ophthalmology, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America, Department of Biomedical Engineering, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

Mark W. Hamrick

Affiliation Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Yutao Liu

yutliu@augusta.edu

Affiliations Department of Cellular Biology and Anatomy, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America, James & Jean Culver Vision Discovery Institute, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America, Center for Biotechnology and Genomic Medicine, Augusta University, Augusta, Georgia, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization: YL MWH. Formal analysis: IH JC MDD MS AZ. Investigation: IH JC MDD AZ MBD MLK WMD. Methodology: YL MWH. Project administration: YL MWH WDS. Resources: YL WDS EB MWH. Supervision: YL MWH WDS. Validation: IH JC MDD AZ MBD MLK WMD. Visualization: IH MDD JC AZ. Writing – original draft: IH MDD. Writing – review & editing: IH MDD JC MS MLK AZ MBD WMD EB WDS MWH YL.