About the Authors

Xiuchun Ge

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

Rafael Rodriguez

Affiliation Department of Periodontics, School of Dentistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

My Trinh

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

John Gunsolley

Affiliation Department of Periodontics, School of Dentistry, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Ping Xu

pxu@vcu.edu

Affiliation VCU 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: PX. Performed the experiments: XG RR MT JG PX. Analyzed the data: XG JG PX. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: PX. Wrote the paper: XG JG PX.