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RETRACTED ARTICLE: Overestimated accuracy of circular dichroism in determining protein secondary structure

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This article was retracted on 14 March 2014

Abstract

Circular dichroism (CD) is a spectroscopic technique widely used for estimating protein secondary structures in aqueous solution, but its accuracy has been doubted in recent work. In the present paper, the contents of nine globular proteins with known secondary structures were determined by CD spectroscopy and Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) in aqueous solution. A large deviation was found between the CD spectra and X-ray data, even when the experimental conditions were optimized. The content determined by FTIR was in good agreement with the X-ray crystallography data. Therefore, CD spectra are not recommended for directly calculating the content of a protein’s secondary structure.

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Acknowledgments

This project was supported in part by grants from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 21275032 and 30970631) and Shanghai Leading Academic Discipline Project (No. B109).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Chemistry, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200433, China

    Kailei Lin, Huayan Yang, Zhengya Gao, Feng Li & Shaoning Yu

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  1. Kailei Lin
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  2. Huayan Yang
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  3. Zhengya Gao
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  4. Feng Li
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  5. Shaoning Yu
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Shaoning Yu.

Additional information

Kailei Lin and Huayan Yang are equally contributed to this work.

After publication of this article, concerns were raised regarding accuracy and interpretation of the presented Circular Dichroism data. To investigate these claims, the article was checked again by two additional referees, and was also discussed by members of the European Circular Dichroism Society. The investigation revealed that the Circular Dichroism aspects of the article are invalid, because the measured protein Circular Dichroism spectra are highly inaccurate, and contradict numerous published studies. Hence, the conclusions of the authors regarding the unreliability of using Circular Dichroism for protein secondary structure determination are unjustified and misleading. When confronted with these findings, the authors were unable to dispel the doubts in their experimental methods and refused to withdraw the article themselves. It could also not be clarified, why the Circular Dichroism spectra presented in this paper have anomalously low amplitudes. As a result of these findings and the subsequent discussions, the Managing Editor of the European Biophysics Journal, Anthony Watts, has now retracted this article.

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Lin, K., Yang, H., Gao, Z. et al. RETRACTED ARTICLE: Overestimated accuracy of circular dichroism in determining protein secondary structure. Eur Biophys J 42, 455–461 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-013-0896-y

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-013-0896-y

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