About the Authors

Zhejun Wang

Contributed equally to this work with: Zhejun Wang, Cesar de la Fuente-Núñez

Affiliations Division of Endodontics, Department of Oral Biological and Medical Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, The State Key Laboratory Breeding Base of Basic Science of Stomatology (Hubei-MOST) & Key Laboratory of Oral Biomedicine Ministry of Education, School & Hospital of Stomatology, Wuhan University, 237 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, PR China

Cesar de la Fuente-Núñez

Contributed equally to this work with: Zhejun Wang, Cesar de la Fuente-Núñez

Affiliation Centre for Microbial Diseases and Immunity Research, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Ya Shen

Affiliation Division of Endodontics, Department of Oral Biological and Medical Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Markus Haapasalo

markush@dentistry.ubc.ca (MH); bob@hancocklab.com (REWH)

Affiliation Division of Endodontics, Department of Oral Biological and Medical Sciences, Faculty of Dentistry, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada

Robert E. W. Hancock

markush@dentistry.ubc.ca (MH); bob@hancocklab.com (REWH)

Affiliation Centre for Microbial Diseases and Immunity Research, Department of Microbiology and Immunology, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

Competing Interests

C.D.L.F.-N. and R.E.W.H. are co-inventors of a provisional patent application on the use of cationic anti-biofilm and innate defense regulator (IDR) peptides (U.S. Patent Application No. 61/870,655). Peptide 1018 has been out-licensed as an immune modulator to Elanco Animal Health. There are no further patents, products in development or marketed products to declare. This does not alter the authors' adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

Author Contributions

Conceived and designed the experiments: ZW CDLF-N YS MH REWH. Performed the experiments: ZW CDLF-N. Analyzed the data: ZW CDLF-N. Wrote the paper: ZW CDLF-N YS MH REWH.