[Corrigendum] Differential miRNAomics of the synovial membrane in knee osteoarthritis induced by bilateral anterior cruciate ligament transection in rats

Mol Med Rep 18: [Related article:] 4051-4057, 2018; DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2018.9385

Following the publication of the above article, an interested reader drew to our attention that, in Fig. 4A, in which the authors had presented a western blot image depicting protein expression of IL-18, IL-1β, NLRP3 and β-actin from synovial tissue lysates from osteoarthritic rats, upon close examination of the figure a striking similarity was noted between the bands shown for the IL-18- and NLRP3-stained Sham group experiments, although the bands appeared in an inverted position relative to each other. Following an enquiry with the authors, they realized that they had included incorrect data for this figure; an amended version of Fig. 4, showing the correct data for NLRP3, is shown opposite.

Figure 4. NLRP3, IL-1β and IL-18 expression in the synovial membrane of KOA rats. (A) Expression of NLRP3, IL-1β and IL-18 was determined in the synovial membrane of KOA rats was analyzed with western blotting (n=3 each group). (B) Semi-quantification of NLRP3, IL-1β and IL-18 levels normalized to β-actin. All data are presented as the mean ± standard error. *P<0.05 vs. sham group. KOA, knee osteoarthritis; IL, interleukin; NLRP3, NACHT, LRR and PYD domains-containing protein 3.

Secondly, the authors have realized that, at various points throughout the paper, two miRNAs were written incorrectly: Specifically, references to an ‘miR-352’ should have appeared as miR-532, and ‘miR-233’ should have been written as miR-223. This error affected the presentation of Fig. 2; therefore, a revised version of this figure, with the miRNAs correctly labelled as miR-532 and miR-223 respectively, is also shown opposite. Furthermore, mi-233 should have been written as miR-223 at the following places in the text: p. 4051, right-hand column (RHC), line 10 (“Furthermore, the miR-223-regulated…); p. 4054, Results section, left-hand column (LHC), third subheading (“miR-223 negatively regulates the expression of NLRP3.”); and in the concluding paragraph of the Discussion on p. 4056, LHC, miR-233 should have been written as miR-223 in all five instances where this occurred (lines 4, 7, 8, 9, and 10 of this paragraph). Finally, the second sentence featured in the subsection of the Results section entitled “Expression validation of miRs by RT-qPCR” on p. 4054 contained additional errors. This sentence should have appeared as follows (changed text is highlighted in bold): “The expression of miR-223, −100, −345, −130, −382, −9a and 183 were upregulated, whereas miR-377, −532, −200b were downregulated with a fold change of ≥1.5, similar to the microarray data (Fig. 2).

Figure 2. miRs were expressed in synovial membrane of KOA rats. The outcomes of selected 10 miRs relative expressions compared with U6 small nuclear RNA by reverse transcription-quantitative polymerase chain reaction in the synovial membrane of KOA rats (n=3 each group). All data are presented as the mean ± standard error. *P<0.05, **P<0.01 vs. Sham group. All reactions were performed in triplicate. miR, microRNA; KOA, knee osteoarthritis.

All the authors agree to the contents of this Corrigendum, and apologize to the Editor of Molecular Medicine Reports and to the readership for any inconvenience caused.