About the Authors

Maria Hovenden

Affiliations Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America, Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America

Mark A. Hubbard

Affiliations Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America, Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America

David P. AuCoin

Affiliations Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America, Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America

Peter Thorkildson

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America

Dana E. Reed

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America

William H. Welch

Affiliations Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America

C. Rick Lyons

Current address: Infectious Disease Research Center, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, Colorado, United States of America.

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

Julie A. Lovchik

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center, Albuquerque, New Mexico, United States of America

Thomas R. Kozel

tkozel@medicine.nevada.edu

Affiliations Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America, Cell and Molecular Biology Graduate Program, University of Nevada School of Medicine, Reno, Nevada, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MH MAH DPA WHW CRL JAL TRK. Performed the experiments: MH MAH PT DER JAL. Analyzed the data: MH MAH PT WHW JAL TRK. Wrote the paper: MH MAH DPA TRK.