Int J Mol Med 35: [Related article:] 995-1002, 2015; DOI:
10.3892/ijmm.2015.2096
Following the publication of this article, a
concerned reader drew to the Editor's attention that, in the tumor
tissue images shown in Fig. 5A and B on p. 1001, there were two
pairs of overlapping data panels, such that data which were
intended to show the results from differently performed experiments
appeared to have been derived from the same original sources.
Subsequently, after having conducted a separate investigation in
the Editorial Office, it came to light that there were also
matching data panels intending to show the results from different
experiments in the flow cytometric plots shown in Fig. 2; moreover,
there appeared to be potential issues with the presentation of some
of the western blots in Fig. 3.
Although the possibility of a corrigendum was
considered, upon reflection, the Editor of International Journal
of Molecular Medicine has decided that, owing to the number of
problems that were identified with the data in the published paper,
the article should be retracted from the publication on account of
data mishandling issues and an overall lack of confidence in the
presented data. The authors were asked for an explanation to
account for these concerns, but the Editorial Office did not
receive a reply. The Editor apologizes to the readership for any
inconvenience caused, and thanks the interested reader for
initially drawing this matter to our attention.
