About the Authors

Xiaohua Ye

Contributed equally to this work with: Xiaohua Ye, Xun Gui

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Xun Gui

Contributed equally to this work with: Xiaohua Ye, Xun Gui

Roles Data curation, Investigation, Methodology

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Daniel C. Freed

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition

Affiliation MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, United States of America

Zhiqiang Ku

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Leike Li

Roles Investigation, Methodology

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Yuanzhi Chen

Roles Investigation

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Wei Xiong

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Xuejun Fan

Roles Methodology

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Hang Su

Roles Methodology

Affiliations Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America, Wuya College of Innovation, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, China

Xi He

Roles Data curation, Methodology

Affiliation MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, United States of America

Richard R. Rustandi

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, United States of America

John W. Loughney

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, United States of America

Ningning Ma

Roles Supervision

Affiliation Wuya College of Innovation, Shenyang Pharmaceutical University, Shenyang, China

Amy S. Espeseth

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, United States of America

Jian Liu

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation Rutgers Medical School of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, United States of America

Hua Zhu

Roles Methodology, Resources

Affiliation Rutgers Medical School of New Jersey, Newark, NJ, United States of America

Dai Wang

Roles Data curation, Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology

Affiliation MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, United States of America

Ningyan Zhang

Roles Formal analysis, Supervision

ningyan.zhang@uth.tmc.edu (NZ); Tong-Ming.Fu@uth.tmc.edu (TMF); zhiqiang.an@uth.tmc.edu (ZN)

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Tong-Ming Fu

Roles Conceptualization, Data curation, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Investigation, Methodology, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

ningyan.zhang@uth.tmc.edu (NZ); Tong-Ming.Fu@uth.tmc.edu (TMF); zhiqiang.an@uth.tmc.edu (ZN)

Affiliations Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America, MRL, Merck & Co., Inc., Kenilworth, NJ, United States of America

Zhiqiang An

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Supervision, Writing – review & editing

ningyan.zhang@uth.tmc.edu (NZ); Tong-Ming.Fu@uth.tmc.edu (TMF); zhiqiang.an@uth.tmc.edu (ZN)

Affiliation Texas Therapeutics Institute, Brown Foundation Institute of Molecular Medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston, Texas, United States of America

Competing Interests

Some authors are full time employee of Merck and Co., Inc. However, their employment has not impact on the outcome of this study. There is no patent or product directly associated with this study. Thus, the authors have declared that no competing interests exist.