Retraction for Wang et al., Somatic hypermutation maintains antibody thermodynamic stability during affinity maturation.

BIOCHEMISTRY Retraction for “Somatic hypermutation maintains antibody thermodynamic stability during affinity maturation,” by Feng Wang, Shiladitya Sen, Yong Zhang, Insha Ahmad, Xueyong Zhu, Ian A. Wilson, Vaughn V. Smider, Thomas J. Magliery, and Peter G. Schultz, which was first published February 25, 2013; 10.1073/ pnas.1301810110 (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110:4261–4266). The undersigned authors wish to note the following: “In the course of an examination of data unrelated to this publication, it came to our attention that some of the thermal melt data collected by a single researcher at The Ohio State University contains irregularities. We conducted an extensive review of the available primary thermal melt data, reprepared multiple key protein samples, and carried out differential scanning fluorimetry (DSF) thermal melts in replicate. Our reanalysis supports the basic conclusion of this manuscript that peripheral mutations accumulated during affinity maturation are stabilizing, whereas binding-site mutations are destabilizing. However, we do not have confidence in any of the aggregation/light scattering data that were intended to confirm the primary DSF thermal melt data because none of those primary data could be located, and we are concerned that the appearance of some of the DSF melting curves reported in the paper may have been altered, largely outside of the melting transition. Based on these concerns, we retract the entire report. These problems occurred despite blinding of the identities of all samples, which were prepared at the Scripps Research Institute and measured at The Ohio State University, as well as regular examination of the melting data by multiple authors throughout the course of this work. We apologize to the readers of this paper for not detecting these problems sooner and for any negative consequences that may have resulted.”