Abstract
The authors noted an error in the 550‐bp DNA substrate used in our experiments shown in Figs 3–5, 6A–C, and 7. The synthetic oligos annealed into the gapped pUC‐19 segment included an additional six non‐homologous bases at the 3′. This resulted in a six base flap of single‐strand DNA overhanging the duplex region. Note, the erroneous oligos that we used are also published elsewhere (Robertson AB, Matson SW, 2012, J Biol Chem, 287: 32953–32966 and Robertson AB, 2007, Ph.D. Thesis). Based upon the identical results we reported using either this flap‐containing 550‐bp DNA or the 50‐bp DNA, which did not contain any single‐strand flaps, the conclusion that MutS undergoes conformational changes when interacting with mismatched bases is not affected. We further conclude that a six base single‐strand flap located 12 bases 3′ from a mismatch does not alter MutS behavior at a mismatch. Finally, we report that we have confirmed these interpretations by duplicating the results in our paper using contiguous, 550‐bp duplexes created with correct oligos to fill the gapped DNA (Qiu R, Sakato M, Sacho EJ, Wilkins H, Zhang X, Modrich P, Hingorani MM, Erie DA, Weninger KR, 2015, Proc Natl Acad Sci USA, 112: 10914–10919).
We apologize for any inconvenience caused by this error.