About the Authors

Tomoyuki Mukai

Affiliation Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America

Richard Gallant

Affiliation Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America

Shu Ishida

Affiliations Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America, Department of Periodontal Medicine, Applied life Sciences, Institute of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Graduate School of Biomedical and Health Sciences, Hiroshima University, Hiroshima, Japan

Teruhito Yoshitaka

Affiliation Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America

Mizuho Kittaka

Affiliation Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America

Keiichiro Nishida

Affiliations Department of Orthopaedic Surgery, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan, Department of Human Morphology, Okayama University Graduate School of Medicine, Dentistry and Pharmaceutical Sciences, Okayama, Japan

David A. Fox

Affiliation Division of Rheumatology, Department of Internal Medicine, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States of America

Yoshitaka Morita

Affiliation Department of Rheumatology, Kawasaki Medical School, Kurashiki, Japan

Yasuyoshi Ueki

uekiy@umkc.edu

Affiliation Department of Oral and Craniofacial Sciences, School of Dentistry, University of Missouri-Kansas City, Kansas City, Missouri, United States of America

Competing Interests

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: TM KN YM YU. Performed the experiments: TM SI RG. Analyzed the data: SI RG MK TY KN DF YM YU. Contributed to the writing of the manuscript: TM YU.