About the Authors

Seloame T. Nyaku

seloame.nyaku@aamu.edu

Affiliation Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Alabama A&M University, Normal, Alabama, United States of America

Venkateswara R. Sripathi

Affiliation Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Alabama A&M University, Normal, Alabama, United States of America

Ramesh V. Kantety

Affiliation Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Alabama A&M University, Normal, Alabama, United States of America

Yong Q. Gu

Affiliation Genomics and Gene Discovery Research Unit, USDA-ARS, Albany, California, United States of America

Kathy Lawrence

Affiliation Department of Entomology and Plant Pathology, Auburn University, Auburn, Alabama, United States of America

Govind C. Sharma

Affiliation Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, Alabama A&M University, Normal, Alabama, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Reviewed the manuscript before submission: STN VRS RVK YQG KL GCS. Conceived and designed the experiments: RVK STN. Performed the experiments: STN YQG. Analyzed the data: STN RVK VRS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: KL RVK STN YQG VRS GCS. Wrote the paper: STN RVK VRS GCS.