AGRICULTURAL SCIENCES. For the article “Characterization of capsaicin synthase and identification of its gene (csy1) for pungency factor capsaicin in pepper (Capsicum sp.),” by B. C. Narasimha Prasad, Vinod Kumar, H. B. Gururaj, R. Parimalan, P. Giridhar, and G. A. Ravishankar, which appeared in issue 36, September 5, 2006, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (103:13315–13320; first published August 28, 2006; 10.1073/pnas.0605805103), the authors wish to note the following: “Subsequent to our publication it was pointed out to us by a reader that the csy1 sequence showed homology with the leucine rich putative protein kinase (EF560217) that appeared post publication of our paper. Accordingly, the identified gene cloned in our article does not conclusively encode to capsaicin synthase and we must retract the PNAS paper.”
B. C. Narasimha Prasad
Vinod Kumar
H. B. Gururaj
R. Parimalan
P. Giridhar
G. A. Ravishankar