About the Authors

Marino Convertino

‡ These authors are co-first authors on this work.

Affiliation Biochemistry and Biophysics Department, University of North Carolina, 120 Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America, 27599

Alexander Samoshkin

‡ These authors are co-first authors on this work.

Affiliation Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain, McGill University, 740 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 0G1

Chi T. Viet

Affiliation Bluestone Center for Clinic Research, New York University, New York, NY, United States of America, 10010

Josee Gauthier

Affiliation Center for Pain Research and Innovation, University of North Carolina, 385 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America, 27599

Steven P. Li Fraine

Affiliation Department of Physiology and Cell Information Systems, McGill University, 3649 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3G 0B1

Reza Sharif-Naeini

Affiliation Department of Physiology and Cell Information Systems, McGill University, 3649 Promenade Sir William Osler, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3G 0B1

Brian L. Schmidt

Affiliation Bluestone Center for Clinic Research, New York University, New York, NY, United States of America, 10010

William Maixner

dokh@unc.edu (NVD); luda.diatchenko@mcgill.ca (LD); bill_maixner@dentistry.unc.edu (WM)

Affiliation Center for Pain Research and Innovation, University of North Carolina, 385 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America, 27599

Luda Diatchenko

dokh@unc.edu (NVD); luda.diatchenko@mcgill.ca (LD); bill_maixner@dentistry.unc.edu (WM)

Affiliation Alan Edwards Centre for Research on Pain, McGill University, 740 Dr. Penfield Avenue, Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H3A 0G1

Nikolay V. Dokholyan

dokh@unc.edu (NVD); luda.diatchenko@mcgill.ca (LD); bill_maixner@dentistry.unc.edu (WM)

Affiliations Biochemistry and Biophysics Department, University of North Carolina, 120 Mason Farm Road, Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America, 27599, Center for Pain Research and Innovation, University of North Carolina, 385 S. Columbia Street, Chapel Hill, NC, United States of America, 27599

Competing Interests

The authors attest that this work was supported in part by the Pfizer Canada Professorship In Pain Research grant to Dr. Diatchenko with no commercial development obligations. This does not alter the authors' adherence to PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials. No other competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: MC AS RS BLS WM LD NVD. Performed the experiments: MC AS CTV JG SPL. Analyzed the data: MC AS CTV JG SPL RS BLS WM LD NVD. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: RS BLS WM LD NVD. Wrote the paper: MC AS WM LD NVD.