Following a self-initiated review, I have decided to retract the paper – “TGF-B signaling
regulates neuronal C1q expression and developmental synaptic refinement” – published by
Nature Neuroscience 16, 1773-1782 (2013). When I became aware by lab members that certain
data underlying the paper may have been unreliable, I followed Boston Children’s policy and
immediately notified appropriate officials and initiated an evaluation of all the data in the
publication. This required us to take time to reinitiate protocols with mouse lines that had been
retired. Following completion of this review, I was no longer confident in the reliability of some of
the conclusions in the paper. I notified the journal early in the process, and ultimately I asked
for the paper to be retracted. This was an isolated incident in my lab involving a paper that has
not been a primary focus or foundation of subsequent work. I apologize and deeply regret that
certain data for this paper did not meet the highest scientific standards.