About the Authors

Johannes H. Matse

Contributed equally to this work with: Johannes H. Matse, Jan G. M. Bolscher, Enno C. I. Veerman, Elisabeth Bloemena

Affiliations Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Oral Pathology, VU University medical center / Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Department of Oral Biochemistry ACTA, University of Amsterdam and VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Janice Yoshizawa

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation School of Dentistry and Dental Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Xiaoyan Wang

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Statistics Core, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

David Elashoff

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Statistics Core, UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Jan G. M. Bolscher

Contributed equally to this work with: Johannes H. Matse, Jan G. M. Bolscher, Enno C. I. Veerman, Elisabeth Bloemena

Affiliation Department of Oral Biochemistry ACTA, University of Amsterdam and VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Enno C. I. Veerman

Contributed equally to this work with: Johannes H. Matse, Jan G. M. Bolscher, Enno C. I. Veerman, Elisabeth Bloemena

Affiliation Department of Oral Biochemistry ACTA, University of Amsterdam and VU University Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

C. René Leemans

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Department of Otolaryngology, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Michiel D. Pegtel

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation Department of Pathology, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

David T. W. Wong

‡ These authors also contributed equally to this work.

Affiliation School of Dentistry and Dental Research Institute, University of California Los Angeles, Los Angeles, California, United States of America

Elisabeth Bloemena

Contributed equally to this work with: Johannes H. Matse, Jan G. M. Bolscher, Enno C. I. Veerman, Elisabeth Bloemena

e.bloemena@vumc.nl

Affiliations Department of Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery and Oral Pathology, VU University medical center / Academic Centre for Dentistry Amsterdam (ACTA), Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Department of Pathology, VU University medical center, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

Competing Interests

David Wong is co-founder of RNAmeTRIX Inc., a molecular diagnostic company. He holds equity in RNAmeTRIX, and serves as a company Director and Scientific Advisor. The University of California also holds equity in RNAmeTRIX. Intellectual property that David Wong invented and which was patented by the University of California has been licensed to RNAmeTRIX. Additionally, he is also a consultant to PeriRx. There are no 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: JHM JY XW DE JB EV DW EB MDP CRL. Performed the experiments: JHM. Analyzed the data: JHM XW DE EV JB EB MDP. Contributed reagents/materials/analysis tools: JHM JY XW DE JB EV DW EB CRL. Wrote the paper: JHM JY XW DE JB EV DW EB.