Visualization of the vesicular acetylcholine transporter in living cholinergic cells

We regret that we must retract the article Visualization of the Vesicular Acetylcholine Transporter in Living Cholinergic Cells by M. S. Santos, J. Barbosa Jr., C. Kushmerick, M. V. Gomez, V. F. Prado, and M. A. M. Prado ( J. Neurochem . 74 , 2425-2435 , 2000). We have made an unintentional mistake in the construction of the enhanced green fluorescent protein (EGFP) vectors, and consequently the vesicular acetylcholine transporter (VAChT) and its truncated forms are incorrectly expressed. We have repeated the key experiments with proper constructs and have found that the expression pattern is clearly different from that reported in the article. The truncated form of VAChT, without the C-terminal tail, presents a distinct pattern of expression when compared to VAChT, and we have found no evidence that the C-terminal tail of VAChT is able to drive EGFP to varicosity sites. As a consequence of this problem, our earlier conclusions were incorrect. We apologize for this mistake and for any problems that we may have caused.