About the Authors

My Trihn

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

Xiuchun Ge

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

Alleson Dobson

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

Todd Kitten

Affiliations VCU Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America, Center for the Study of Biological Complexity, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America

Cindy L. Munro

Affiliation The College of Nursing, University of South Florida, Tampa, Florida, United States of America

Ping Xu

pxu@vcu.edu

Affiliations VCU Philips Institute of Oral and Craniofacial Molecular Biology, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America, Center for the Study of Biological Complexity, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, Virginia, United States of America, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, 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: MT XG AD TK CM PX. Analyzed the data: MT XG PX. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: MT PX. Wrote the paper: MT PX.