Retraction to: Nature Neuroscience https://doi.org/10.1038/s41593-019-0430-3, published online 8 July 2019.

The authors have retracted this article. In this study the first author aimed to examine the effects of local genetic manipulation of local nerves innervating individual tumours on the individual tumour dynamics, and thus selected experiments in which individual tumours were used as n = 1 (n = 8 tumours per group). However multiple individual tumours within one animal were used as one group. The first author failed to describe this situation and in the figure legends stated that n = mice in each group. The investigative committees of Okayama University and National Cardiovascular Research Center in Japan performed an investigation into this matter and concluded that the calculated numbers of animals necessary for all experiments were more than the purchased number of animals when n = 8 rats/mice per group. The committee also stated that the details of each experiment, raw data, primary data and original drawings were not submitted to the Okayama University Investigation Committee as objective evidence during the investigation. The committee also concluded that there were several errors in the description of virus particles in this paper and confirmed that irregularities had been identified in the following figures:

  • Figure 1

  • Figure 1e and 5e,

  • Figure 2e and 5e,

  • Figure 6e and Supplementary Figure 2b,

  • Figure 3d and 5d

  • Figure 7g and Figure 7h

  • Supplementary Figure 17f and Supplementary Figure 17h

  • Supplementary Figure 20c and Supplementary Figure 20h

  • Supplementary Figure 20f and Supplementary Figure 20h

  • Supplementary Figure 28e and Supplementary Figure 28g

  • Supplementary Figure 30b and Supplementary Figure 30g

  • Supplementary Figure 30e and Supplementary Figure 30g

  • Supplementary Figures 17c–g and Supplementary Figures 28b–f

  • Supplementary Figures 20c–g and Supplementary Figures 30b–f

Additionally the Research Ethics Committee of National Cardiovascular Research Center and National Cancer Center have stated that the authors did not have the appropriate ethics approval for the use of the human specimens in this study.

Shigeki Kato, Akihiko Shimomura, Takushi Shimomura, Kazuto Kobayashi and Takahiro Ochiya agree to this retraction. Ryosuke Kaneko and Yuchio Yanagawa have not responded to any correspondence from the editor about this retraction. The editor was not able to obtain current email addresses for Hayama Yohsuke and Katsumasa Irie.