About the Authors

Karine F. Ferri-Lagneau

Affiliation The Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States of America

Karni S. Moshal

Affiliation The Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States of America

Matthew Grimes

Affiliation The Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States of America

Braden Zahora

Affiliation The Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States of America

Lishuang Lv

Affiliation Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States of America

Shengmin Sang

Affiliation Center for Excellence in Post-Harvest Technologies, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States of America

TinChung Leung

tleung@nccu.edu

Affiliations The Biomedical/Biotechnology Research Institute, North Carolina Central University, North Carolina Research Campus, Kannapolis, North Carolina, United States of America, Department of Biology, North Carolina Central University, Durham, North Carolina, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KFF KSM SS TL. Performed the experiments: KFF. Analyzed the data: KFF LL SS TL. Wrote the paper: KFF KSM SS TL. Assisted in the preliminary experiments: BZ MG.