RETRACTED: Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor α Controls Hepatic Heme Biosynthesis Through ALAS1

This article has been retracted. Please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (). Reason: In this paper the authors described six of eight genes encoding for human heme biosynthesis pathway as primary targets of the nuclear receptor PPARα. The most responsive and rate-limiting gene was ALAS1, which has several putative PPARα binding sites in its regulatory region. It came to the attention of the corresponding author that the first author has performed incorrect data handling for the ChIP analysis described in Figs. 4 and 5B and has also used wrong gel pictures as representatives in gel shift assays shown in Fig. 5A. In the following the ChIP data were re-analyzed and the gel shifts were repeated. The claims of Fig. 4 on the binding of PPARα, RXRα, PGC1α and pPol II to the transcription start site (TSS) region of the six PPARα responsive heme biosynthesis pathway still hold true but the numerical values changed. Also the claim of Fig. 5A on in vitro binding of PPARα-RXRα heterodimers to putative response elements (REs) of the ALAS1 gene could be reproduced. New versions of Figs. 4 and 5 can be found at . However, together with the re-analyzed ChIP data of Fig. 5B and the reporter gene data of Fig. 5C, the authors have to change their conclusion about the functional PPARα binding sites of the ALAS1 gene: not RE1 and RE2, but RE1 and RE3 being located 9 and 0.7 kB upstream of the ALAS1 TSS seem to be the correct sites mediating the effects of PPARα on the regulation of the gene. The chief editor and authors requested that this paper be retracted and sincerely apologize for these errors and for any inconvenience this might cause.