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In the years following the publication of ‘A photoactivatable green-fluorescent protein from the phylum Ctenophora’[1], another research group [2] sequenced hydrozoan (Cnidaria) fluorescent proteins that were very similar to those we cloned from cDNA prepared from ctenophore specimens. We therefore now believe that the green-fluorescent proteins reported in our study are not from ctenophores, and were due to incorporation of cnidarian prey into the ctenophore tissues.

Although our genes were cloned from two independent samples of mRNA taken years apart, the similarity of our sequences to those obtained from a siphonophore (Cnidaria, Hydrozoa) indicate that this mRNA was carried over from ingested material. This ctenophore species is known to prey on cnidarians, but we did not expect that mRNA would persist for as long as it did, and we regret our erroneous conclusion. What is remarkable about this …