RETRACTED: Drosophila Ten-a is a maternal pair-rule and patterning gene

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy).This article has been retracted at the request of the author, for the following reason.A recently produced deletion mutation of the Drosophila melanogaster gene Ten-a removes the entire gene, yet does not lead to lethality. Thus the lethality and the pair-rule gene roles reported for Ten-a in Mech. Dev., 124 (2007) 911–924 cannot be attributed to this gene, but to second site loci in mutants studied. Given the centrality of the pair-rule claim for this paper, it has been retracted. The other findings of the paper remain as reported, particularly molecular and biochemical characterizations of the Ten-a gene, its alleles and its transcripts.