About the Authors

M. Sayeedur Rahman

mrahm001@umaryland.edu

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Joseph J. Gillespie

Affiliations Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America, Virginia Bioinformatics Institute at Virginia Tech, Blacksburg, Virginia, United States of America

Simran Jeet Kaur

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Khandra T. Sears

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Shane M. Ceraul

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Magda Beier-Sexton

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Abdu F. Azad

Affiliation Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MSR JJG AFA. Performed the experiments: MSR JJG SJK. Analyzed the data: MSR JJG AFA. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MSR KTS SMC MB-S AFA. Wrote the paper: MSR JJG MB-S AFA.