About the Authors

Shanqiao Wei

Contributed equally to this work with: Shanqiao Wei, Madusha L. W. Perera

Roles Investigation, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America

Madusha L. W. Perera

Contributed equally to this work with: Shanqiao Wei, Madusha L. W. Perera

Roles Investigation, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America

Ramin Sakhtemani

Roles Investigation

Affiliation Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America

Ashok S. Bhagwat

Roles Conceptualization, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

axb@chem.wayne.edu

Affiliations Department of Chemistry, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America, Immunology and Microbiology, Wayne State University, Detroit, Michigan, United States of America

Competing Interests

ASB is a member of AAAS and ASM. All authors are affiliated with Wayne State University, which could eventually benefit if a patent is granted on AA3 and related compounds. A patent regarding AA3 is pending (PCT/US2017/012279). This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.