PLANT BIOLOGY Retraction for “Autophosphorylation of Tyr-610 in the receptor kinase BAK1 plays a role in brassinosteroid signaling and basal defense gene expression,” by Man-Ho Oh, Xiaofeng Wang, Xia Wu, Youfu Zhao, Steven D. Clouse, and Steven C. Huber, which appeared in issue 41, October 12, 2010, of Proc Natl Acad Sci USA (107:17827–17832; first published September 27, 2010; 10.1073/pnas.0915064107).
The authors wish to note the following: “We wish to retract the information in this article pertaining to the phenotype of transgenic plants expressing BAK1 (Y610F)-Flag presented in Figs. 2 and 3 and Tables 1 and 2. After publication of this article, we became aware that the transgenic plants described in this manuscript were not correct because of inadvertent errors in genotyping of the plants, and thus the in planta results presented are not valid. However, the results identifying Tyr-610 as an autophosphorylation site (in vitro and in vivo) and all results obtained with recombinant proteins (presented in Figs. 1 and 4) are valid, and conclusions drawn from functional and interaction studies in vitro are correct. The responsibility for this experimental error rests with only two of the authors: the senior author (M.-H.O.), who was a Senior Research Scientist when these studies were conducted with extensive experience in molecular biology and whose primary responsibility was production of the transgenic plants. The other responsible individual is the corresponding author (S.C.H.), who failed to provide adequate oversight for the production of the transgenic plants; as a result, critical checks and balances were not in place. The other authors (X.W., Y.Z., and S.D.C.) are not responsible in any way for this regrettable situation. We are currently producing transgenic plants expressing BAK1 (Y610F)-Flag in the bak1 bak1 / bkk1 bkk1 double null background to redo these experiments and plan to publish the results in the near future. We deeply and sincerely regret any scientific misconceptions that have been caused by the above paper. Because we had no reason to question the transgenic plants at the time of publication, the corresponding author’s laboratory spent more than an additional year studying these plants before the error was discovered. We hope to spare others from doing the same. We apologize to the entire scientific community for the misinformation and any adverse consequences that may have resulted.”