About the Authors

Carlo Chan

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, Center for Mathematical and Complex Biological Systems, Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, California, United States of America

Xinfeng Liu

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, University of South Carolina, Columbia, South Carolina, United States of America

Liming Wang

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, California State University, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Lee Bardwell

Affiliation Department of Developmental and Cell Biology, School of Biological Sciences, University of California, Irvine, California, United States of America

Qing Nie

Contributed equally to this work with: Qing Nie, Germán Enciso

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, Center for Mathematical and Complex Biological Systems, Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, California, United States of America

Germán Enciso

Contributed equally to this work with: Qing Nie, Germán Enciso

enciso@uci.edu

Affiliation Department of Mathematics, Center for Mathematical and Complex Biological Systems, Center for Complex Biological Systems, University of California, Irvine, California, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: XL LB QN GE. Analyzed the data: CC LW LB QN GE. Wrote the paper: LB GE. Performed all simulations: CC. Performed the mathematical proofs: CC LW GE. Wrote the supplementary material: CC GE.