About the Authors

Waqar Ahmed

Contributed equally to this work with: Waqar Ahmed, Pretty S. Philip

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Alin, United Arab Emirates

Pretty S. Philip

Contributed equally to this work with: Waqar Ahmed, Pretty S. Philip

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Alin, United Arab Emirates

Saeed Tariq

Affiliation Department of Anatomy, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Alin, United Arab Emirates

Gulfaraz Khan

g_khan@uaeu.ac.ae

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, United Arab Emirates University, Al Alin, United Arab Emirates

Competing Interests

The authors have read the journal's policy and have the following conflicts: G. Khan is on the Editorial Board of PLOS ONE. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: GK. Performed the experiments: WA PSP ST. Analyzed the data: GK WA PSP ST. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: GK. Wrote the paper: GK WA.