About the Authors

Lei Chen

Current address: School of Chemical Engineering and Technology, Tianjin University, Tianjin, People’s Republic of China

Affiliation The Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Xiuchun Ge

Affiliation The Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Xiaojing Wang

Current address: Department of Biostatistics and Bioinformatics, School of Public Health, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, United States of America

Affiliation The Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Jenishkumar R. Patel

Affiliation The Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Ping Xu

pxu@vcu.edu

Affiliation The Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: LC PX. Performed the experiments: LC XG XW JP PX. Analyzed the data: LC XG PX. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: LC PX. Wrote the paper: LC PX.