About the Authors

Qing Hong

Roles Formal analysis, Investigation, Methodology, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Current address: Midwestern University, Glendale, AZ, United States of America

Affiliation Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States of America

Hongmin Sun

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

sunh@health.missouri.edu (HS); yuq@missouri.edu (QY)

Affiliation Department of Internal Medicine, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States of America

Meng Chen

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Nanova, Inc., Columbia, MO, United States of America

Shaoping Zhang

Roles Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

Affiliation Department of Periodontics, College of Dentistry, Iowa University, Iowa City, IA, United States of America

Qingsong Yu

Roles Conceptualization, Formal analysis, Funding acquisition, Methodology, Project administration, Supervision, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing

sunh@health.missouri.edu (HS); yuq@missouri.edu (QY)

Affiliation Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, University of Missouri, Columbia, MO, United States of America

Competing Interests

Hongmin Sun (HS) is a consultant of Nanova Inc., and its subsidiary Ivogen Inc., and owns stocks in Nanova, Inc. HS received research funding previously from a Gift fund for the Curators of University of Missouri by Nanova Inc. HS is a co-inventor on patents for methods and compositions for treating bacterial infection: US 8501722, US 9504688, US 9814719, US 10441588, Japan 6293736 and European 2844258. Ivogen Inc. is developing products related to these patents. QY is a cofounder of Nanova Inc. and has financial interest in the company. Nanova has been developing plasma brush device for dental clinical applications, and the related patents include: US 10299887 and US 10631396. This does not alter the authors’ adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.