About the Authors

Ou Zhang

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America

Mattie C. Wilson

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America

Wei Xu

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America

Fong-Fu Hsu

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

John Turk

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

F. Matthew Kuhlmann

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Yingwei Wang

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Department of Pathology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, United States of America

Lynn Soong

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Department of Pathology, The University of Texas Medical Branch, Galveston, Texas, United States of America

Phillip Key

Affiliation Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Stephen M. Beverley

Affiliation Department of Molecular Microbiology, Washington University School of Medicine, St. Louis, Missouri, United States of America

Kai Zhang

kai.zhang@ttu.edu

Affiliation Department of Biological Sciences, Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: KZ. Performed the experiments: OZ MCW WX FFH YW KZ. Analyzed the data: OZ MCW WX FFH JT LS SMB KZ. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: FMK PK. Wrote the paper: OZ SMB KZ.