About the Authors

Esther Meersman

Contributed equally to this work with: Esther Meersman, Jan Steensels

Affiliations Laboratory for Genetics and Genomics, Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Laboratory for Systems Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Leuven, Belgium

Jan Steensels

Contributed equally to this work with: Esther Meersman, Jan Steensels

Affiliations Laboratory for Genetics and Genomics, Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Laboratory for Systems Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Leuven, Belgium

Melissa Mathawan

Affiliation Barry Callebaut AG, Zurich, Switzerland

Pieter-Jan Wittocx

Affiliations Laboratory for Genetics and Genomics, Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Laboratory for Systems Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Leuven, Belgium

Veerle Saels

Affiliations Laboratory for Genetics and Genomics, Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Laboratory for Systems Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Leuven, Belgium

Nore Struyf

Affiliations Laboratory for Genetics and Genomics, Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Laboratory for Systems Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Leuven, Belgium

Herwig Bernaert

Affiliation Barry Callebaut AG, Zurich, Switzerland

Gino Vrancken

Affiliation Barry Callebaut AG, Zurich, Switzerland

Kevin J. Verstrepen

kevin.verstrepen@biw.vib-kuleuven.be.

Affiliations Laboratory for Genetics and Genomics, Centre of Microbial and Plant Genetics (CMPG), KU Leuven, Leuven, Belgium, Laboratory for Systems Biology, Vlaams Instituut voor Biotechnologie (VIB), Leuven, Belgium

Competing Interests

One or more of the authors have an affiliation to the commercial funders of this research (Barry Callebaut AG), namely Gino Vrancken, Melissa Mathawan and Herwig Bernaert. However, they had no role in data collection, data analysis and preparation of the manuscript and this does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: EM JS GV KV. Performed the experiments: EM JS PW VS NS. Analyzed the data: EM JS. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MM HB GV KV. Wrote the paper: EM JS KV.