BIOCHEMISTRY Retraction for “Selection of cyclic peptide aptamers to HCV IRES RNA using mRNA display” by Alexander Litovchick, Jack W. Szostak, which appeared in issue 40, October 7, 2008, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (105:15293–15298; first published September 29, 2008; 10.1073/pnas.0805837105).
The authors wish to note the following: “After thorough efforts by K. Berry in the laboratory of J. A. Doudna to reproduce our reported IRES-specific translational inhibition were unsuccessful, we initiated an extensive effort to reproduce the IRES-specific peptide binding. These experiments, carried out with the assistance of Y. Guillen in the laboratory of J. W. Szostak, also failed to confirm our previously published results. Therefore, we retract the paper. We sincerely apologize for any confusion that the publication of this study may have caused.”