Retraction: Genomic organization of human transcription initiation complexes

We reported the presence of degenerate versions of four well known core promoter elements(BRE_u, TATA, BRE_d and INR) at most measured TFIIB binding locations found across the human genome. However, it was brought to our attention by Matthias Siebert and Johannes Söding in the accompanying Brief Communication Arising (Nature 511, E11–E12, http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/nature13587; 2014) that the core-promoter-element analyses that led to this conclusion were not correctly designed. Consequently, the individual core promoter elements were not statistically validated, and therefore there is no evidence of specificity for most reported core-promoter-element locations. To the best of our knowledge, the raw and processed human TFIIB, TBP and Pol II ChIP-exo data are valid, but subject to standard false discovery considerations. We therefore retract the paper. We sincerely apologize for adverse consequences that may have arisen from the error in our analyses.