ETM Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine 1792-0981 1792-1015 D.A. Spandidos 10.3892/etm.2026.13147 ETM-31-6-13147 Retraction [Retracted] MicroRNA-140-5p regulates the proliferation, apoptosis and inflammation of RA FLSs by repressing STAT3 ZhuJiehua WangJianglin HuangJialin DuWensheng HeYingzhong PanHongfei LuoJunmin 062026 07042026 31 6 152 Copyright: © 2026 Zhu et al. 2026 This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.

Exp Ther Med 21:171, 2021; DOI: 10.3892/etm.2020.9602

Following the publication of this paper, it was drawn to the Editor's attention by a concerned reader that the data in the ‘Control’ data panel shown for the apoptosis experiments in Fig. 4 were strikingly similar to data appearing in different form in other articles written by different authors at different research institutes, a few of which had already been published prior to the submission of this paper to Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine. Moreover, upon performing an independent analysis of the data in this paper, it came to light that certain of the western blot data shown in Fig. 4A, 5B and 6, and flow cytometric data in Figs. 3B and 7E, had similarly appeared elsewhere in articles written by different authors at different research institutes.

In view of the fact that the abovementioned data had already apparently been published previously, the Editor of Experimental and Therapeutic Medicine has decided that this paper should be retracted from the Journal. 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.