RETRACTED: Peptide-induced formation of protein aggregates and amyloid fibrils in human and guinea pig αA-crystallins under physiological conditions of temperature and pH

• Published in: Experimental eye research 2019-02, Vol.179, p.193-205
• Main Authors: Kumarasamy, Anbarasu, Jeyarajan, Sivakumar, Cheon, Jonathan, Premceski, Anthony, Seidel, Eric, Kimler, Victoria A., Giblin, Frank J.
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: alpha-Crystallin A Chain - metabolism; Amino Acid Sequence; Amyloid - metabolism; Amyloid beta-Peptides - metabolism; Animals; Chromatography, High Pressure Liquid; Electrophoresis, Polyacrylamide Gel; Guinea Pigs; Humans; Hydrogen-Ion Concentration; Lens, Crystalline - drug effects; Lens, Crystalline - metabolism; Lens, Crystalline - ultrastructure; Microscopy, Electron, Transmission; Molecular Sequence Data; Peptide Fragments - pharmacology; Protein Aggregates; Recombinant Proteins; Temperature
• ISSN: 0014-4835; 1096-0007
• DOI: 10.1016/j.exer.2018.11.016

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal). This article has been retracted at the request of the authors. The senior author contacted the journal in a forthright manner, in an effort to preserve the scientific integrity of the literature, after discovering a significant error in the results reported in the article. The authors were recently made aware of a paper by Kim et al. (Nature Commun. 2019) which shows a spirosome structure (the enzyme aldehyde-alcohol dehydrogenase) present in E. coli (Fig. 5a) that is very similar to the structure the authors thought formed when synthetic alpha A crystallin (66-80) peptide was incubated for 24 h with recombinant guinea pig alpha A insert crystallin (see Kumarasamy et al., Figs. 7C and F, and Fig. 9). Subsequent to publication of their report, the authors later found a number of images that showed what appeared to be the same structure present in samples of their presumably purified recombinant guinea pig alpha A insert crystallin which had been incubated without peptide for 24 h. Hence, the authors now conclude that the structures shown in Figs. 7C and F, and Fig. 9 of their article published in this journal are actually due to E. coli contaminant aldehyde-alcohol dehydrogenase. The authors deeply regret this error and any inconvenience it may have caused.