The original paper, published on 11 January 2021, examined the antitumor effect and molecular mechanism of fucoidan in non-small cell lung cancer, the most common category of lung malignancy, which includes adenocarcinomas and squamous cell carcinomas. Fucoidan has attracted sustained attention in the complementary medicine literature because it is a readily available seaweed extract with reported immunomodulatory and anti-proliferative properties, and laboratory studies have repeatedly suggested that it can interfere with signaling pathways that drive cancer cell growth. The retracted study focused on two widely used lung cancer cell lines, A549 and H1650, and reported effects on proteins involved in cell-cycle control and growth signaling.

According to the retraction notice, the problems centered on Figure 2 of the original article, which presented western blot data, a technique in which proteins separated by size are transferred to a membrane and detected with antibodies to reveal whether a target protein is more or less abundant under different experimental conditions. In cancer mechanism studies, western blots are often the decisive evidence that a treatment changed the level of a specific protein, so the authenticity of each band carries substantial weight. The editors identified multiple similarities that should not exist between bands that were supposed to represent different proteins in different experiments.

Specifically, the notice describes a similarity between the Cyclin D1 band in A549 cells shown in Figure 2A and the pm-TOR band in A549 cells shown in Figure 2B. Cyclin D1 is a cell-cycle protein that pushes cells through the G1 phase and is frequently overactive in cancer, while pm-TOR refers to phosphorylated mTOR, the activated form of a central growth-regulating kinase that integrates nutrient and growth-factor signals. A single image cannot legitimately serve as the detection signal for two different proteins probed in two different assays, because each western blot experiment involves separate gel electrophoresis, transfer, antibody incubation, and chemiluminescent detection steps that produce distinct banding patterns.

The editors also documented similarities between panels that were supposed to show results from the two different cell lines treated with the same fucoidan concentrations. The upper part of the A549 panel treated with fucoidan at 10 milligrams per milliliter was found to be similar to the lower part of the H1650 panel at the same concentration, and the lower part of the A549 panel at 16 milligrams per milliliter was similar to the upper part of the corresponding H1650 panel. A549 and H1650 cells are biologically distinct models, derived from different patients and carrying different genetic backgrounds, so their protein expression patterns under identical treatment conditions would be expected to differ. Overlapping image content between such panels suggests that the same underlying image material was reused to represent separate experiments.

The retraction notice records the authors’ responses, which were divided. Authors Xiaohan Chen and Haijun Lu agreed with the retraction, while authors Li Sun, Xiaojuan Wei, Ye Tan, Zhanyi Sun, and Jinju Jiang did not respond to correspondence from the publisher about the retraction. The absence of a coordinated institutional response left the editors with no credible explanation for the duplicated image content, and the notice states plainly that the editors therefore lost confidence in the data and conclusions of the article. The retraction note itself was published on 19 October 2026 as volume 26, article number 310 of the journal, more than five years after the original publication.

The author list of the original paper also reflects a collaboration that bridged clinical and commercial interests. Several authors were affiliated with the Department of Oncology at the Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University and with Heze Municipal Hospital, while two authors, Zhanyi Sun and Jinju Jiang, were affiliated with the State Key Laboratory of Bioactive Seaweed Substances at Qingdao Brightmoon Seaweed Group Co Ltd, a company operating in the seaweed products industry. Fucoidan research frequently involves such partnerships, because seaweed processors hold both the raw material and the extraction expertise, while clinical departments provide the disease models and the translational motivation. The retraction does not attribute the image problems to any particular affiliation, but the structure of the collaboration illustrates how enthusiasm for a commercially relevant natural product can move a manuscript quickly from the laboratory to publication.

For readers who followed the original findings, the retraction matters because fucoidan has been promoted in some circles as a dietary supplement with anticancer potential, and laboratory papers like this one are often cited in support of such claims. The retracted study reported that fucoidan suppressed lung cancer cell proliferation and modulated the expression of proteins including Cyclin D1 and components of the mTOR pathway, a mechanistic story that fit neatly with the broader narrative that seaweed polysaccharides can restrain the signaling circuits that tumors depend on. With the paper retracted, that specific body of evidence can no longer be relied upon, and citations of it in reviews or meta-analyses should be removed or flagged in accordance with retraction guidelines.

The case also illustrates the technical fingerprints that image-integrity screening has become adept at detecting. Western blot figures are assembled from multiple exposures and panels, and when the same band, or a portion of one, appears in more than one place with different labels, duplication-detection software and attentive readers can identify the overlap even when the images have been flipped, cropped, or adjusted for contrast. In this instance, the reported similarities involved both a within-figure duplication, where one band allegedly represented two different proteins, and cross-panel duplication between the two cell lines, a combination that is difficult to explain as an innocent laboratory error. The failure of most of the author team to engage with the concerns meant that no alternative explanation was ever placed on the record.

The editors’ decision follows the standard logic of research self-correction: when the primary evidence for a conclusion is compromised and the authors cannot or will not defend it, the conclusion must be withdrawn from the scientific record regardless of how plausible it may seem. Retraction does not prove that fucoidan has no antitumor activity, and other independent studies of seaweed-derived compounds continue in laboratories around the world. What it does establish is that this particular dataset, produced with the involvement of a seaweed industry laboratory and published in a complementary medicine journal, cannot support the claims it was published to make. For patients and clinicians weighing marine-derived supplements as part of cancer care, the episode is a reminder that the evidence base for such compounds must be judged study by study, and that retracted papers, however widely they once circulated, no longer count as evidence at all.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a study on the antitumor effect and molecular mechanism of fucoidan in non-small cell lung cancer

Article Title: Retraction Note: Antitumor effect and molecular mechanism of fucoidan in NSCLC

Article References: Chen, X., Sun, L., Wei, X., Lu, H., Tan, Y., Sun, Z., & Jiang, J. (2026). Retraction Note: Antitumor effect and molecular mechanism of fucoidan in NSCLC. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 26(1), Article 310. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-026-05648-0

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12906-026-05648-0

Keywords: fucoidan, retraction, non-small cell lung cancer, western blot, image duplication, research integrity, Cyclin D1, mTOR, A549, H1650, seaweed extract, BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies

The retracted study, originally published on 10 August 2022, had been authored by Fei Lv and Ying Wang of the Department of Oncology at Shengjing Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang, along with XiaoQi Li of the Department of Oncology III at the People’s Hospital of Liaoning Province. An initial retraction notice appeared in the same journal in 2022, and the newly published note, BMC Cancer volume 26, article number 1089, dated 11 September 2026, now carries the full editorial record of the withdrawal, including the canonical DOI 10.1186/s12885-026-16962-8.

According to the editors, the trouble began with Figure 2b of the original article. In that panel, four experimental conditions were supposed to show distinct results: untreated controls receiving neither lycorine nor sunitinib, cells treated with lycorine at 6 micromolar, cells treated with lycorine at 12 micromolar, and cells treated with sunitinib at 1 micromolar without lycorine. Instead, the editors found that the images corresponding to the 0 hour time points for all four conditions appear to overlap, meaning the same underlying picture may have been reused to represent different treatments. In experimental biology, where a figure is often the primary evidence that a treatment had an effect, such duplication strikes at the heart of the claim being made.

The technical significance of the overlap is worth unpacking. In assays that track how endothelial cells form the vessel-like networks that constitute angiogenesis, researchers typically capture images at multiple time points and across multiple drug concentrations to demonstrate a dose-dependent and time-dependent response. If the zero hour images for a control, two different lycorine doses, and a sunitinib-only condition are identical or nearly identical, it becomes impossible to tell whether the differences observed at later time points reflect genuine biology or artifacts of image handling. Sunitinib, a well-established tyrosine kinase inhibitor that blocks PDGFR and VEGFR signaling, serves as a positive control in such experiments, and its panel being indistinguishable from the untreated control at baseline is particularly concerning, since the two conditions should be biologically equivalent at time zero but should diverge as the experiment proceeds.

PDGFRα, the receptor named in the retracted paper’s title, is a platelet-derived growth factor receptor that transmits signals driving the proliferation, migration, and survival of pericytes and smooth muscle cells that stabilize newly formed blood vessels. Blocking PDGFRα signaling is one strategy to weaken the structural support of tumor vasculature, complementing approaches that target the endothelial cells themselves. Lycorine, an alkaloid extracted from plants in the Amaryllidaceae family, has been studied for a range of biological activities, and the retracted paper had claimed, based on molecular docking calculations, that the compound could bind directly to PDGFRα, providing a mechanistic explanation for its anti-angiogenic effects. Molecular docking is a computational technique that predicts how a small molecule fits into the binding pocket of a protein, and while it can suggest a plausible interaction, it does not by itself prove that the interaction occurs in living cells.

The retraction note states plainly that the authors have not responded to these concerns and that the editors have therefore lost confidence in the data and conclusions of the article. Authors Fei Lv, XiaoQi Li, and Ying Wang did not respond to correspondence from the publisher about the retraction. This lack of response is itself a significant fact, because in many retraction cases, authors cooperate with journals to correct or clarify the record, and their silence leaves the underlying questions about how the duplicated images arose unanswered. The journal has not specified whether the duplication was accidental or intentional, only that the concerns were raised and went unaddressed.

Retractions of this kind are part of a broader pattern in which journals, aided increasingly by automated image forensics and reader vigilance, identify problems in published figures that were missed during peer review. Reviewers, who typically see manuscripts once and may not have access to the original raw data files, are often in a poor position to detect subtle image reuse, especially when the duplication involves baseline or control conditions that look similar by design. Post-publication scrutiny, whether from readers, journals, or dedicated watchdogs, has become an essential complement to the peer review process, and the BMC Cancer retraction reflects that ongoing dynamic.

For the field of angiogenesis research, the withdrawal removes one data point from a crowded literature on natural compounds with anti-cancer potential. Lycorine and related alkaloids continue to be investigated in other laboratories and in other contexts, and the retraction does not speak to the broader question of whether the compound has genuine anti-angiogenic activity. What it does establish is that the specific evidence presented in this paper, linking lycorine to PDGFRα through a combination of docking predictions and cell-based assays, cannot be relied upon. Researchers citing the original work will now need to look elsewhere for support of the claims it advanced.

The retraction also underscores the importance of the original raw data in resolving disputes about published figures. When authors respond to concerns, journals can often distinguish between honest errors, such as the accidental reuse of a baseline image during figure assembly, and more serious problems, such as the deliberate fabrication of results. In the absence of any author response, the editors had no way to make that distinction, and the conservative course, withdrawing the article entirely, is the one they took. The retracted paper remains online, marked with a retraction notice, so that readers who encounter it through search engines or citation databases will be alerted to its status.

As the biomedical literature continues to grow at a rapid pace, cases like this one serve as a reminder that the publication of a paper is not the end of the scientific process but the beginning of its evaluation by the wider community. The tools for detecting problems after publication, from image forensics software to reader comments and formal post-publication peer review, have matured considerably, and journals are increasingly willing to act on the concerns they surface. The BMC Cancer retraction of the lycorine study is one small piece of that larger effort to maintain the integrity of the record on which future research depends.

Subject of Research: Retraction of lycorine angiogenesis study

Article Title: Retraction Note: Lycorine inhibits angiogenesis by docking to PDGFRα

Article References: Lv, F., Li, X., & Wang, Y. (2026). Retraction Note: Lycorine inhibits angiogenesis by docking to PDGFRα. BMC Cancer, 26(1), Article 1089. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-026-16962-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12885-026-16962-8

Keywords: retraction, lycorine, angiogenesis, PDGFRα, BMC Cancer, image duplication, research integrity, sunitinib, Note, inhibits, docking, PDGFR

The original study proposed an elegant molecular mechanism. Long non-coding RNAs are transcripts that do not code for proteins but can act as molecular sponges, soaking up microRNAs and preventing them from suppressing their downstream targets. According to the paper, LINC00852 functioned as a competing endogenous RNA that sequestered miR-140-3p, thereby relieving inhibition of AGTR1, the angiotensin II receptor type 1 gene. This axis, the authors argued, promoted ovarian cancer cell growth and invasion, positioning LINC00852 as a potential therapeutic target in a disease that remains among the deadliest gynecological malignancies.

That mechanism now stands retracted. The retraction notice catalogs a disturbing pattern of image similarities spanning at least eight separate instances, connecting panels from the ovarian cancer paper to figures in five unrelated publications covering colon cancer, lung cancer, and even hyperoxia-induced lung injury in newborn rats. The editors identified duplicated images between Fig. 2C of the retracted article, showing SKOV-3 ovarian cancer cells with LINC00852 knockdown, and Fig. 2C of a 2021 BMC Cancer paper on LINC01287 in colon cancer cells. Additional overlaps linked Fig. 2E and Fig. 6B of the ovarian cancer study to the same colon cancer publication, while other panels matched figures from papers on Ganoderan in non-small cell lung cancer, HNF1B overexpression in A549 cells, tetrandrine in lung injury, and GANT61 in osteosarcoma.

Perhaps most tellingly, the editors also flagged internal duplication within the retracted paper itself. Fig. 2E row 1 panel 1, labeled as a SKOV-3 control, and Fig. 2E row 2 panel 1, labeled as an OV-90 control, were found to be partially similar to each other. In experimental terms, these panels should represent distinct cell lines serving as untreated baselines for comparison. Their partial overlap suggests that images intended to demonstrate independent experimental conditions may not have been generated independently at all, a hallmark of image manipulation that automated screening tools and vigilant readers increasingly detect across the scientific literature.

The technical implications of such duplication are severe. Western blot panels, microscopy images, and flow cytometry plots form the evidentiary backbone of studies like this one. When the same image appears under different experimental labels across multiple papers, the underlying data cannot support the biological conclusions drawn from them. In this case, the duplicated panels were central to demonstrating that LINC00852 knockdown reduced proliferation and invasion in SKOV-3 and OV-90 cells, and that miR-140-3p mimics could rescue the effects of LINC00852 overexpression. Without trustworthy primary data, the proposed ceRNA mechanism collapses entirely.

The retraction notice states that the authors, including Zhi-wei Qiao, Ying Jiang, Ling Wang, Lei Wang, Jing Jiang, Jing-ru Zhang, and Peng Mu, all affiliated with the Department of Gynaecology at the Cancer Hospital of China Medical University in Shenyang, did not respond to correspondence from the publisher about the retraction. This silence extends to the concerns raised about the data itself. When authors fail to engage with editors during a retraction investigation, the outcome typically reflects the severity of the evidence rather than any mitigating explanation.

This case fits within a broader pattern of concern surrounding image integrity in cancer research. The five papers cited in the retraction notice as sources of the duplicated images include one from Onco Targets and Therapy on Ganoderan signaling in lung cancer, one from Translational Cancer Research on PI3K/AKT phosphorylation, one from Annals of Translational Medicine on tetrandrine and NF-κB p65 inhibition, and one from Cell Biology International on GANT61 in osteosarcoma that itself carries a retraction notice. The web of connections suggests that images may have circulated across multiple manuscripts, potentially from shared laboratory resources or systematic reuse, rather than isolated error.

For the ovarian cancer research community, the retraction removes a claimed therapeutic target from the literature. LINC00852 had been positioned alongside other long non-coding RNAs as part of a growing class of transcripts implicated in gynecological malignancies. The competing endogenous RNA hypothesis, which underpinned the paper’s mechanism, remains an active area of investigation, with researchers exploring how lncRNA-miRNA-mRNA networks regulate tumor behavior. However, each retracted study in this space erodes confidence in the field’s accumulated findings and complicates meta-analyses that aggregate results across publications.

The retraction also highlights the evolving role of post-publication scrutiny. Modern image forensics tools can detect duplicated panels across thousands of papers by comparing pixel patterns, background textures, and band shapes. Journals increasingly rely on such tools during routine screening, and readers can flag suspicious figures through platforms like PubPeer. The BMC Cancer editors acted on concerns raised after publication, systematically documenting each similarity with precise figure and panel references before reaching the decision to retract. This methodical approach, while slower than some would like, builds a transparent record that other journals and institutions can act upon.

The retracted article remains accessible online with a watermarked retraction notice, preserving the scientific record while ensuring that readers encountering the work understand its status. The canonical DOI for the retraction note is 10.1186/s12885-026-16963-7, published as volume 26, article number 1092 of BMC Cancer. The original article, published under DOI 10.1186/s12885-021-08730-7 as volume 21, article number 1004, now carries the retraction as part of its permanent record. For researchers citing LINC00852 in ovarian cancer, the message is clear: the data supporting this mechanism can no longer be trusted, and the field must look elsewhere for reliable insights into the molecular drivers of this devastating disease.

Subject of Research: Scientific misconduct and research integrity

Article Title: Retraction Note: LINC00852 promotes the proliferation and invasion of ovarian cancer cells by competitively binding with miR-140-3p to regulate AGTR1 expression

Article References: Qiao, Z.-W., Jiang, Y., Wang, L., Wang, L., Jiang, J., Zhang, J.-R., & Mu, P. (2026). Retraction Note: LINC00852 promotes the proliferation and invasion of ovarian cancer cells by competitively binding with miR-140-3p to regulate AGTR1 expression. BMC Cancer, 26(1), Article 1092. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12885-026-16963-7

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12885-026-16963-7

Keywords: retraction, ovarian cancer, LINC00852, image duplication, BMC Cancer, research integrity, microRNA, ceRNA mechanism, Note, promotes, proliferation, invasion

The original article, published on 9 August 2023 under the title Phytochemistry, antioxidant, anticancer, and acute toxicity of traditional medicinal food Biarum bovei (Kardeh), appeared in the same journal as article number 283 in volume 23. It attracted attention because Biarum bovei is consumed as a traditional food in some regional cuisines and has been used in folk medicine, making claims about its antioxidant and anticancer properties potentially relevant to both nutrition science and drug discovery. Studies of this kind typically involve extracting chemical compounds from the plant, testing those extracts in laboratory assays for their ability to neutralize reactive oxygen species, exposing cancer cell lines to the extracts to measure cytotoxic effects, and dosing experimental animals to assess acute toxicity. The retracted paper reported results across all of these domains, which is why the concerns identified by the editors strike at the core of its findings.

The retraction note details three specific sets of similarities that triggered the editors’ decision. First, all six panels of Figure 7 in the retracted article were found to be similar to all six panels of Figure 1 in a separate study, a chemoprevention paper on Onosma mutabilis published in Current Issues in Molecular Biology in 2023 by Ahmed A.j. Jabbar, Ibrahim Abdel Aziz Ibrahim, and colleagues. That earlier work examined the effects of Onosma mutabilis against azoxymethane-induced colon cancer in rats, focusing on the modulation of Bax/Bcl-2 and NF-κB signaling pathways. Second, the upper-right portion of panel 7E in the retracted article was found to be similar to the lower-left portion of Figure 2B, a kidney image, in a second study on anise, Pimpinella anisum L., published in Environmental Science and Pollution Research in 2024. That anise paper, led by G. Almaimani with overlapping co-authors, reported that anise attenuated azoxymethane-induced colorectal cancer in rats through antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, and anti-apoptotic pathways. Third, the left part of Figure 7B in the retracted article was found to be similar to the right part of Figure 7D within the same paper, meaning that images presented as representing different experimental conditions appeared to overlap with one another.

These findings matter because of what Figure 7 was presumably meant to demonstrate. In pharmacological and toxicological studies of medicinal plants, histological figures typically show stained tissue sections from experimental animals, allowing researchers to visually compare organ health across treatment groups. If the same or substantially similar images appear across different papers, or within different panels of the same figure that are supposed to represent different experimental conditions, the reliability of the underlying histological evidence is called into question. The similarity between a figure in the Biarum bovei paper and a kidney image in the anise paper is particularly troubling, since the two studies concerned different plants, different experimental designs, and, in principle, different animals. Image duplication of this kind can arise from various causes, including laboratory record-keeping failures, image processing errors, or deliberate fabrication, and the retraction note does not specify which explanation applies.

According to the retraction notice, the authors were unable to address the concerns raised about the data. The editors therefore concluded that they had lost confidence in both the data and the conclusions of the article. Compounding the situation, the authors did not respond to any correspondence from the publisher about the retraction itself. This silence is significant in scholarly publishing practice: when authors engage with a retraction process, they may provide original raw data, explain apparent duplications, or agree to corrected republication. When authors do not respond, editors have little choice but to proceed on the basis of the documented concerns, and the resulting retraction stands as the record’s final word unless new evidence emerges.

The author list of the retracted paper was extensive, spanning institutions in Iraq and Saudi Arabia. Bassam Ali Abed Wahab of the University of Kufa’s Faculty of Veterinary Medicine in Iraq was listed first, followed by Zaenah Zuhair Alamri and Rahaf Frehan Alharthi of the University of Jeddah, and Ahmed A.j. Jabbar of Erbil Polytechnic University, who was also the corresponding author. Additional co-authors came from Umm Al-Qura University in Makkah, Taibah University in Madinah, and Jazan University in Jizan. Notably, several of the same researchers, including Jabbar and Ibrahim, appear in the author lists of the two papers whose figures were found to overlap with the retracted article, a pattern that investigators of research integrity often examine when duplicated images surface across multiple publications from overlapping teams.

The retraction also illustrates the increasingly systematic way in which post-publication scrutiny operates. Journals in the BMC and Springer Nature portfolio, which publish open access research under Creative Commons licenses, rely on editorial review processes that now routinely include checks for image manipulation and duplication, sometimes aided by software that detects overlapping regions within and across published figures. Once concerns are raised, editors typically contact the authors and, where relevant, their institutions, seeking an explanation or the underlying raw data. In this case, the concerns could not be resolved, and the formal retraction notice now accompanies the article’s record, with the notice itself carrying a distinct digital object identifier, 10.1186/s12906-026-05643-5, separate from the original paper’s identifier of 10.1186/s12906-023-04080-y.

For the broader field of complementary medicine research, the episode carries lessons about the evidentiary standards required before traditional remedies are promoted as therapeutic agents. Biarum bovei belongs to a family of plants that are toxic in their raw state and require careful preparation before consumption, which makes rigorous toxicity data especially important. Claims about anticancer activity in cell culture or animal models are early-stage findings at best, and they depend entirely on the integrity of the microscopy, assay results, and statistical analyses behind them. When histological evidence is compromised, downstream conclusions about safety and efficacy lose their foundation, and clinicians, herbal practitioners, and the public who might encounter such findings online are left without a reliable basis for decisions. Retraction notices serve as the scientific community’s mechanism for flagging exactly this kind of unreliability, ensuring that the paper is no longer cited as valid evidence.

The retraction is also a reminder of how interconnected the recent literature on plant-based chemoprevention has become, and how overlapping authorship across multiple papers can amplify the impact of a single integrity problem. The two related studies identified in the retraction note, on Onosma mutabilis and on anise, remain in the literature as far as the notice indicates, but the documented image overlaps now form part of the public record associated with them. Researchers, reviewers, and readers who encounter work from this research cluster are likely to approach it with heightened caution, and indexing databases will link the retraction notice to the original article so that future citations can be flagged. As open access publishing expands the global reach of natural product research, the infrastructure for detecting and correcting flawed science is expanding alongside it, and the case of the Kardeh plant study shows that even a paper on a humble traditional food is subject to the same exacting standards as any other claim in biomedical science.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a study on the phytochemistry, antioxidant, anticancer, and acute toxicity of the traditional medicinal plant Biarum bovei due to duplicated image data

Article Title: Retraction Note: Phytochemistry, antioxidant, anticancer, and acute toxicity of traditional medicinal food Biarum bovei (Kardeh)

Article References: Wahab, B. A. A., Alamri, Z. Z., Jabbar, A. A. J., Ibrahim, I. A. A., Almaimani, R. A., Almasmoum, H. A., Ghaith, M. M., Farrash, W. F., Almutawif, Y. A., Ageeli, K. A., Alfaifi, S. M., & Alharthi, R. F. (2026). Retraction Note: Phytochemistry, antioxidant, anticancer, and acute toxicity of traditional medicinal food Biarum bovei (Kardeh). BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 26(1), Article 302. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-026-05643-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12906-026-05643-5

Keywords: Biarum bovei, retraction, research integrity, image duplication, phytochemistry, antioxidant, anticancer, acute toxicity, BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, traditional medicine, histology, open access

The decision follows a detailed examination of several figures in the original paper, which had been published online on 8 August 2017. According to the retraction notice, concerns were raised about overlapping sections within and between multiple figure panels. In Figure 2A, a section of the Control/DAPI panel appeared to overlap with other material, and in Figure 3A a section of the WHO Grade I/DAPI panel showed similar duplication. DAPI is a fluorescent stain used to label cell nuclei, so panels built around it are typically used to document the distribution and appearance of cells in tumour tissue samples. Overlapping sections in such panels suggest that the same imaging data may have been reused to represent different experimental conditions.

The problems were not confined to those two figures. The journal identified overlapping sections across multiple panels within Figure 4A and within Figure 7D, as well as overlaps between panels of Figure 4A and Figure 7D. In a further instance, the lower-left section of the Migration/U251/Mock panel of Figure 7A appeared to overlap with the upper-right section of the Migration/U251/Scr panel of Figure 7D. Migration assays using the U251 glioma cell line, comparing mock-transfected controls with cells treated with a scrambled control sequence, are central to claims about tumour cell motility, so duplication in these panels strikes at the heart of the paper’s invasion-suppressor hypothesis.

Yet another concern involved western blot data, a technique used to detect specific proteins in a sample by separating them on a gel and probing them with antibodies. The retraction notice states that the U251/p-Cofilin bands of Figures 8B and 8C appear to overlap. Cofilin is a protein involved in actin remodelling and cell movement, and its phosphorylation status was part of the mechanistic story linking the miR-29 family to CDC42 and the invasive behaviour of glioma cells. Overlapping bands in western blots raise the possibility that the same experimental result was presented more than once, potentially as evidence for different comparisons.

When the concerns emerged, the authors were asked to substantiate their findings. According to the retraction notice, the authors provided some original data upon request, but this material could not be verified. That inability to verify the underlying records left the Editor-in-Chief with little alternative but to withdraw the paper. Shizhu Yu and Qian Wang, the corresponding authors, stated on behalf of all authors that they agree to the retraction. The notice does not describe any finding of misconduct against specific individuals; it records only that confidence in the reliability of the reported data has been lost.

The original study had attracted attention because it tied together several threads of glioma biology into a single narrative. MicroRNAs are short RNA molecules that do not code for proteins but instead regulate gene expression after transcription, typically by binding to messenger RNAs and suppressing their translation or promoting their degradation. The miR-29 family, comprising miR-29a, miR-29b and miR-29c, had previously been implicated in a range of cancers, and the 2017 paper argued that these molecules suppress the invasive behaviour of glioma cells by targeting CDC42, a member of the Rho family of GTPases that controls cytoskeletal organisation, cell polarity and migration. The paper also claimed that the expression levels of these microRNAs could predict the prognosis of patients with gliomas, offering a potential biomarker for a disease in which reliable prognostic indicators are urgently needed.

Gliomas are the most common primary brain tumours in adults, and the most aggressive form, glioblastoma, remains one of the deadliest human cancers despite decades of research. A key reason for its lethality is the diffuse way tumour cells infiltrate surrounding healthy brain tissue, which makes complete surgical resection nearly impossible and leaves behind cells that drive recurrence. Understanding the molecular machinery that governs invasion, including CDC42 and the actin-regulating proteins downstream of it such as cofilin, has therefore been a major research priority. That context explains why the original paper’s claims were consequential and why their retraction matters to researchers who may have built on the findings.

The retraction also illustrates how the scientific literature polices itself through image integrity analysis. Modern forensic tools make it possible to detect duplicated regions within and between published figures, even when the copies have been flipped, rotated or subtly adjusted. Overlaps between a DAPI-stained tissue panel in one figure and a migration assay panel in another are particularly difficult to explain innocently, because they suggest shared source images across experiments that should have generated independent data. Journals including those published by Springer Nature routinely act on such findings, requesting original data from authors and retracting papers when verification fails.

For the field, the immediate consequence is that the specific claims linking miR-29a/b/c to CDC42-mediated invasion suppression and prognostic prediction in glioma patients can no longer be relied upon as published evidence. Researchers citing the work will need to note its retracted status, and meta-analyses or reviews that incorporated its data will require revision. The retraction notice records 548 accesses to the notice itself, a reminder that withdrawn papers continue to be consulted long after publication. Whether the underlying biology of the miR-29 family in gliomas is accurate remains an open question; the retraction speaks to the integrity of the reported data rather than disproving the hypothesis outright, and independent laboratories would need to establish any such role through verifiable experiments.

The episode adds to a growing record of retractions in cancer biology, where high-volume imaging and blot-based experiments create many opportunities for error or manipulation, and where automated screening has dramatically increased detection. The British Journal of Cancer, which published the original article and the retraction, has made the notice freely available alongside the original paper’s record, with the canonical retraction notice carrying its own DOI, 10.1038/s41416-026-03643-3, distinct from the original article’s DOI of 10.1038/bjc.2017.255. For now, the 2017 study stands as a cautionary example: a biologically plausible and appealing story about microRNAs taming brain tumour invasion, undone by figures that could not withstand scrutiny and original data that could not be verified.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a 2017 glioma study on miR-29a/b/c microRNAs targeting CDC42 due to figure image duplication

Article Title: Retraction Note: miR-29a/b/c function as invasion suppressors for gliomas by targeting CDC42 and predict the prognosis of patients

Article References: Shi, C., Ren, L., Sun, C., Yu, L., Bian, X., Zhou, X., Wen, Y., Hua, D., Zhao, S., Luo, W., Wang, R., Rao, C., Wang, Q., & Yu, S. (2026). Retraction Note: miR-29a/b/c function as invasion suppressors for gliomas by targeting CDC42 and predict the prognosis of patients. British Journal of Cancer. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41416-026-03643-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1038/s41416-026-03643-3

Keywords: glioma, microRNA, miR-29, CDC42, retraction, British Journal of Cancer, research integrity, image duplication, western blot, tumour invasion, prognosis, U251

The original article, published on 7 August 2019, reported that NR1B2, a member of the nuclear receptor family, appeared to restrain the growth and spread of kidney renal clear cell carcinoma cells. According to the study, manipulating the expression of this gene influenced the migratory and invasive behaviour of cancer cells in laboratory models, and the authors linked these effects to regulation of the Hippo pathway effector YAP, a transcriptional co-activator with well-established roles in organ size control, tissue regeneration and tumour progression. Findings of this kind attract attention because clear cell renal cell carcinoma frequently metastasises and often develops resistance to existing therapies, making any apparent tumour-suppressive pathway a potential lead for drug development.

The concerns that ultimately ended the paper’s life centred on its figures. According to the retraction note, several panels in the study appeared to contain overlapping or duplicated image regions, a category of irregularity that image-integrity specialists and journal editors treat as a serious red flag. In Figure 3I, the upper left section of the PLKO/Migration panel and the lower right section of the PLKO/Invasion panel appeared to overlap. In Figure 5B, the 786-O SH-NR1B2 band of NR1B2 and the SW839 OE-NR1B2 band of P-YAP appeared to overlap when one of them was flipped. These are the kinds of discrepancies that are difficult to explain as innocent technical artefacts, because they suggest that the same underlying image data may have been used to represent different experimental conditions.

Further irregularities spanned multiple figures. The retraction note states that the OE-NR1B2/Invasion and PWPI/Migration panels of Figure 3H appeared to overlap with the OE-NR1B2(+) Si-YAP(-)/Invasion and OE-NR1B2(-) Si-YAP(-)/Migration panels of Figure 5G, respectively. In practical terms, this means that images presented as evidence for distinct experimental comparisons, in different figures of the paper, appeared to derive from the same source material. Migration and invasion assays are foundational experiments in cancer biology: they measure how cancer cells move through membranes or matrices, and their results are used to argue that a gene promotes or suppresses metastatic behaviour. If the images underpinning those assays are duplicated or rearranged, the central claims of the paper lose their evidentiary foundation.

When the concerns were raised, the authors were given an opportunity to respond. According to the retraction note, they provided some source data on request from the Publisher, but this material was judged insufficient to address the issues that had been identified. In the world of research integrity, source data, the raw image files, numerical readouts and laboratory records behind a published figure, is the ultimate arbiter. If original files can be produced and they match the published figures and the described experiments, concerns can often be resolved. When the supplied material falls short, editors are left with published images that show apparent duplication and no adequate explanation, and the standard response is retraction.

Compounding the problem, none of the authors responded to any correspondence from the Publisher regarding the retraction. Silence at this stage is significant. Retraction is not supposed to be a punishment imposed without due process; journals typically notify authors, invite comment, and consider any evidence offered before acting. When authors do not engage, editors must make a decision based on the available record. In this case, the combination of multiple overlapping figure panels, incomplete source data and non-response left the Editor-in-Chief with little alternative but to withdraw the paper from the literature.

The retraction carries technical implications for researchers who work on renal cell carcinoma and on the NR1B2 gene. NR1B2, also known in the literature as a retinoic acid receptor-related orphan receptor family member, belongs to a class of ligand-activated transcription factors that regulate gene expression programs involved in metabolism, differentiation and cell growth. Because nuclear receptors are druggable proteins, studies implicating them in cancer suppression often spark interest in pharmacological modulation. The retracted paper’s claim that NR1B2 restrains clear cell renal cell carcinoma progression by regulating YAP signalling would, if validated, have pointed toward a specific signalling axis that could be targeted. Researchers citing the paper will now need to treat its conclusions as unsupported, and any lines of investigation built on its figures will require independent re-examination.

The case also illustrates how the Hippo-YAP pathway became a crowded and competitive area of cancer research, and how that intensity can create pressure that sometimes manifests in the literature as image problems. YAP and its paralog TAZ act as sensors of mechanical and developmental cues, driving expression of genes that promote proliferation and block apoptosis. In many tumour types, including renal cancer, elevated YAP activity is associated with aggressive disease. Demonstrating that an upstream nuclear receptor suppresses YAP would be a coherent and attractive mechanistic story, which is precisely why such a result, once published in an open-access cancer research journal, would be picked up by other groups. The retraction means that this particular story must now be regarded as unproven rather than disproven, but the distinction matters little for scientists deciding whether to invest time and grant money in following it up.

For the broader scientific community, the episode is another data point in the ongoing effort to police the integrity of the biomedical literature. Journals increasingly use automated and manual image forensics to detect duplicated panels, spliced gels and mirrored blots, and readers increasingly report suspicious figures through channels such as PubPeer. Retraction notes like this one, which itemise the specific concerns in detail, serve a dual purpose: they warn researchers away from relying on the retracted findings, and they document the evidentiary basis for the withdrawal so that the decision itself can be scrutinised. The detailed listing of the overlapping panels in Figures 3H, 3I, 5B and 5G in this retraction note follows that transparent convention.

The original article remains accessible online, as is standard practice, but it is now watermarked with the retraction so that readers encountering it are alerted to its status. The retraction note itself, published as Volume 45, article number 209 of the Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, was released on 7 October 2026, more than seven years after the original publication. For patients and clinicians, the practical consequences are limited: no therapy was developed from this paper in the intervening years. For the research record, however, the correction is meaningful. Science advances not only through new discoveries but through the careful removal of results that can no longer be trusted, and this retraction, however late, ensures that the claim that NR1B2 suppresses kidney renal clear cell carcinoma progression will no longer circulate as established fact.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a study on NR1B2 regulation of kidney renal clear cell carcinoma progression

Article Title: Retraction Note: NR1B2 suppress kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) progression by regulation

Article References: Yin, L., Li, W., Wang, G., Shi, H., Wang, K., Yang, H., & Peng, B. (2026). Retraction Note: NR1B2 suppress kidney renal clear cell carcinoma (KIRC) progression by regulation. Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, 45(1), Article 209. https://doi.org/10.1186/s13046-026-03839-8

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s13046-026-03839-8

Keywords: retraction, kidney cancer, renal cell carcinoma, NR1B2, YAP signalling, research integrity, image duplication, tumour suppressor, cancer biology, Journal of Experimental & Clinical Cancer Research, figure manipulation, Hippo pathway

The concerns that triggered the retraction are strikingly specific and, to anyone familiar with laboratory practice, deeply troubling. According to the notice, the Migration image in the Control group partially overlaps with the Invasion image in the same group in Figure 3 of the paper. A second, parallel problem affects the experimental arm of the same figure: the Migration image in the siCCND3 group partially overlaps with the Invasion image in that group as well. In plain terms, two pairs of images that were supposed to document two distinct biological measurements in two distinct experimental conditions appear, at least in part, to be the same pictures. The editors concluded that these duplications undermined the reliability of the figure and, by extension, the paper’s central claims.

To understand why such duplication matters, it helps to understand what migration and invasion assays actually measure and why they are treated as independent lines of evidence. In cancer biology, a migration assay typically assesses the ability of cells to move across a surface or through a gap, often using a scratch wound or a porous membrane without any coating. An invasion assay asks a harder question: can the cells not only move but also digest their way through a matrix that mimics the extracellular barriers they would encounter in tissue, usually a layer of Matrigel or a similar basement-membrane substitute coating the membrane? The two assays are conceptually related but biologically distinct, and a paper arguing that silencing a gene alters cancer cell behavior is expected to show coherent, distinguishable changes in both. When the control-group migration image overlaps with the control-group invasion image, the two assays collapse into one measurement. When the same overlap appears in the knockdown group, the entire comparative framework of the experiment is called into question, because the reader can no longer tell whether the reported differences between conditions reflect biology or image handling.

The gene at the center of the retracted work, CCND3, encodes cyclin D3, one of three D-type cyclins that serve as regulatory subunits for cyclin-dependent kinases 4 and 6. These kinase complexes phosphorylate the retinoblastoma protein, releasing transcription factors that drive cells from the G1 phase of the cell cycle into DNA synthesis. Because D-type cyclins sit at the gateway to proliferation, their dysregulation has long been implicated in cancer, and the related cyclin D1 has become a well-established diagnostic and prognostic marker in several tumor types, most famously in mantle cell lymphoma and in certain breast cancers. Cyclin D3 has a more nuanced profile: it is essential for the development of certain immune cell lineages, it is amplified or overexpressed in subsets of lymphomas and other malignancies, and its role in breast cancer specifically has been debated in the literature. The retracted 2015 paper had positioned cyclin D3 as a predictor of disease-free survival in breast cancer patients, a claim that, if validated, could have influenced how clinicians stratify patients for follow-up intensity or adjuvant therapy decisions.

The retraction notice makes clear that the concerns were raised by the authors themselves following publication, a detail that distinguishes this case from many retractions initiated by external sleuths or journal readers. The notice states that concerns were raised by the authors, including but not limited to the two image-overlap issues in Figure 3, indicating that the listed problems may not be exhaustive. Equally notable is what the notice records about the authors’ subsequent behavior: the authors have not responded to any correspondence from the Editor about this retraction. That silence leaves the record without an author explanation for the duplicated images, without a corrected version, and without any authorial dissent from the retraction itself. Under the retraction guidelines that most major publishers follow, a retraction is not a finding of misconduct by the journal; it is a statement that the published record can no longer be trusted, and it stands regardless of whether authors cooperate.

The original study emerged from the Department of Breast Surgery at the Breast Cancer Institute of Fudan University Shanghai Cancer Center, one of China’s leading oncology institutions, with contributing authors also affiliated with the center’s Department of Pathology and with the Department of Oncology at Shanghai Medical College of Fudan University. The author list included Yayun Chi, Sheng Huang, Mengying Liu, Liang Guo, Xuxia Shen and Jiong Wu, with Chi, Huang and Liu credited as equal contributors and Wu listed as the corresponding author. The paper was published open access in 2015 as volume 15, article 89 of Cancer Cell International, under the DOI 10.1186/s12935-015-0245-6, and the retraction notice itself carries the DOI 10.1186/s12935-026-04480-3. Open-access articles are licensed under Creative Commons terms that permit wide sharing and reuse, which means retracted copies can circulate freely on repositories, course packs and preprint-style aggregators long after the retraction notice appears, a structural challenge that the scholarly publishing industry continues to grapple with through initiatives such as CrossMark, which flags the version-of-record status of a document to readers who encounter it elsewhere.

Retractions of this kind rarely arrive in isolation, and the eleven-year gap between publication and withdrawal invites questions about how such overlaps survived peer review in the first place. Peer reviewers evaluate the scientific logic, the novelty and the statistical presentation of a manuscript, but they are volunteers, typically unpaid, and they are rarely equipped with the software tools now used to detect image manipulation. Over the past decade, the field has developed increasingly sensitive approaches to figure forensics, including tools that scan manuscripts for duplicated regions within and across images, even when the duplicates have been rotated, flipped, resized or adjusted for brightness. Journals have also begun screening at submission rather than after publication. A partial overlap between a migration image and an invasion image is exactly the class of error such screening is designed to catch, and its detection a decade after publication illustrates both how far the technology has come and how much of the older literature remains unexamined.

For clinicians and researchers who cited the original paper, the retraction carries practical consequences. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses that aggregated prognostic markers for breast cancer may have incorporated the cyclin D3 disease-free survival findings, and those analyses now require revision to exclude the retracted data. Databases that track gene-disease associations and prognostic signatures will typically annotate the paper as withdrawn, but the speed and completeness of such updates vary. For patients, the direct clinical impact is likely limited, since a single retrospective biomarker study from 2015 would not, on its own, have established cyclin D3 as a standard clinical test; prognostic markers require independent validation in large, multi-institution cohorts before entering practice. The retraction nonetheless removes one data point from the evidence base and, more importantly, removes a claim that may have been cited as supporting evidence in downstream papers, a phenomenon known in the literature-watching community as citation contamination, where a retracted finding continues to accrue citations from authors unaware of its status.

The case also speaks to the specific vulnerabilities of functional assays in cancer research. Migration and invasion images, along with flow cytometry plots, western blots and colony-formation photographs, are among the most frequently implicated elements in retractions, because they are generated in large numbers, look superficially similar across conditions and are easy to mislabel or reuse when assembling multi-panel figures. The pattern in this retraction, where the duplication occurs within each experimental group rather than between groups, suggests the kind of assembly error that can arise when many images from the same experiment are sorted and placed into panels, though the notice does not speculate on cause, and no author explanation is on record. What the notice does establish is the editorial standard applied: when two supposedly distinct measurements within the same figure cannot be distinguished, the editors’ confidence in the results and conclusions is lost, and the appropriate remedy is withdrawal of the paper rather than correction, because the integrity of the underlying experiment cannot be reconstructed from the published images alone.

The retraction notice closes the chapter on a study that once contributed to the conversation about cyclin D3 and breast cancer prognosis, but it does not settle the underlying biology. Whether cyclin D3 expression genuinely stratifies disease-free survival in breast cancer remains an open empirical question that would need to be addressed by studies with verified, independently generated data. What the case does settle, for the record, is that the 2015 paper cannot serve as evidence in that conversation. Readers who encounter the original article, its PDF or its citations in the wild are directed to the retraction notice at Cancer Cell International, and the scholarly consensus it represents is unambiguous: the figure evidence no longer supports the conclusions, the authors have not contested the withdrawal, and the article now stands as a cautionary example of why image integrity, quiet as it may seem beside headlines about genes and survival, is the load-bearing wall of experimental science.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a 2015 breast cancer biomarker study on cyclin D3 and disease-free survival due to duplicated images

Article Title: Retraction Note: Cyclin D3 predicts disease-free survival in breast cancer

Article References: Chi, Y., Huang, S., Liu, M., Guo, L., Shen, X., & Wu, J. (2026). Retraction Note: Cyclin D3 predicts disease-free survival in breast cancer. Cancer Cell International, 26(1), Article 333. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12935-026-04480-3

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12935-026-04480-3

Keywords: retraction, breast cancer, cyclin D3, CCND3, disease-free survival, image duplication, migration assay, invasion assay, Cancer Cell International, research integrity, prognostic markers, cell cycle

The retraction notice, published in the same journal, explains that after publication, concerns were raised regarding image irregularities. When the authors were contacted to clarify the issues, they did not respond. In the world of research integrity, that silence is often decisive. Journals typically give authors an opportunity to explain anomalies in their figures, and when those explanations fail to materialize, editors are left with little choice but to retract. The notice is unambiguous: the editors no longer trust the findings, and the scientific record has been corrected accordingly.

The specific concerns are technical but instructive. According to the retraction notice, a panel in Figure 3B of the retracted paper, labeled as an IL-1 beta condition at a concentration of 10 nanograms per milliliter, appears to overlap with a panel in Figure 6C of a separate 2019 article on nasopharyngeal carcinoma published in Cancer Cell International. Strikingly, the same panel also appears to overlap with a panel in Figure 2D of a second, unrelated paper on pancreatic cancer that has itself since been retracted. In plain terms, identical or nearly identical images seem to have been used to represent entirely different experiments in entirely different disease contexts, spanning osteoarthritis, nasopharyngeal cancer, and pancreatic cancer.

This kind of image duplication is one of the most common triggers for retractions in the modern era of research integrity screening. Western blots, microscopy fields, and other gel-based or imaging outputs are supposed to be unique records of individual experiments. When the same image shows up in multiple papers, or in multiple figures within a single paper, it suggests either careless figure assembly or deliberate fabrication. Software tools and vigilant readers now routinely flag such overlaps, and journals have invested heavily in automated screening pipelines that compare figures across vast swaths of the published literature. What once might have slipped through unnoticed for decades can now be detected within months or years of publication.

The retraction also contains a second, more troubling element: a disputed authorship claim. One of the listed authors, Zhiguang Qiao, stated that he did not contribute to the study and did not consent to being listed as an author of the article. The remaining authors, according to the notice, have not responded to correspondence regarding the retraction. Authorship disputes of this kind raise questions that go beyond the integrity of the data itself. Authorship carries professional credit, responsibility, and accountability, and being listed on a paper without consent is a serious matter. Conversely, when a paper is retracted, every listed author shares in the reputational damage, which is precisely why consent and genuine contribution matter so much.

The original study, published on 7 October 2019, had explored a question of real clinical interest. Osteoarthritis is the most common form of arthritis, affecting hundreds of millions of people worldwide, and its hallmark is the slow degeneration of joint cartilage accompanied by chronic inflammation. Current treatments largely manage symptoms with painkillers and anti-inflammatory drugs, but nothing on the market halts or reverses the underlying disease. That gap has fueled intense interest in natural compounds with anti-inflammatory properties, and acteoside has been one of the candidates. Found in plants such as those used in traditional medicine systems, acteoside had been reported in various laboratory studies to modulate inflammatory signaling, and the JAK/STAT pathway, a chain of molecular interactions that transmits signals from the cell surface to the nucleus, is a well-established regulator of immune and inflammatory responses. Drugs targeting this pathway are already approved for conditions including rheumatoid arthritis, so the hypothesis that a plant compound might act similarly in osteoarthritis was scientifically plausible.

Plausible, however, is not the same as demonstrated. The retraction does not merely erase a single data point; it removes the evidentiary basis for the paper’s central claim that acteoside inhibits inflammatory responses via JAK/STAT signaling in osteoarthritic rats. Readers who encounter the paper in databases or citation lists will now find it flagged as retracted, and responsible researchers will exclude it from systematic reviews and meta-analyses. This matters because complementary and alternative medicine research is frequently cited in public discussions of herbal remedies, and retracted findings can linger in the popular imagination long after the formal correction. A retraction notice is a small document, but its function is to stop the spread of unreliable conclusions before they harden into accepted wisdom.

The case also illustrates the interconnected nature of research integrity problems. The two articles whose figures allegedly overlap with the retracted osteoarthritis paper are themselves notable: one, on circular RNA in nasopharyngeal carcinoma, remains in the literature as far as the notice indicates, while the other, a study of solasodine against pancreatic cancer, is explicitly labeled as retracted. When the same images surface across papers from what appear to be different research groups or different disease areas, integrity investigators often look for common threads, such as shared figure-preparation services, paper mills, or overlapping authorship networks. The retraction notice itself does not draw such conclusions, and it would be wrong to speculate beyond what the editors have stated. But the pattern of a single panel appearing in three different disease contexts is exactly the kind of red flag that has, in other cases, led to much larger sweeps of retractions.

For the journal, BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, the retraction is part of a broader reckoning. Journals in the complementary medicine space have faced particular scrutiny in recent years, in part because the field attracts a high volume of submissions and in part because several journals in adjacent areas experienced mass retractions linked to paper mills. Editors have responded with stricter checks at submission, including image forensics, statistical scrutiny, and requirements for raw data. The fact that this retraction was issued years after the original publication, and that the notice was published in 2026 with a new article number and DOI, reflects the often slow but methodical pace of post-publication correction. Investigations take time, correspondence with authors can drag on for months, and legal considerations sometimes complicate matters further.

What should readers take away from this episode? First, that the self-correcting machinery of science, however slow, does function. A paper published in 2019 has been formally retracted, its problems documented, and its authors given the chance to respond. Second, that images are evidence. The figures in a scientific paper are not illustrations; they are the data themselves, and their integrity is inseparable from the integrity of the conclusions. Third, that authorship is a responsibility, not just a credit line, and disputes about who did or did not contribute are treated with seriousness by editors. And finally, that single studies, especially early animal studies of natural compounds, should always be viewed as provisional. The hypothesis that acteoside might calm inflammation in arthritic joints may yet be tested rigorously by other groups with clean data. Until then, the scientific record now accurately reflects what is and is not known, and that accuracy is the foundation on which all future research depends.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a study on acteoside and the JAK/STAT inflammatory pathway in osteoarthritis due to image irregularities

Article Title: Retraction Note: Acteoside inhibits inflammatory response via JAK/STAT signaling pathway in osteoarthritic rats

Article References: Qiao, Z., Tang, J., Wu, W., Tang, J., & Liu, M. (2026). Retraction Note: Acteoside inhibits inflammatory response via JAK/STAT signaling pathway in osteoarthritic rats. BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, 26(1), Article 285. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12906-026-05627-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12906-026-05627-5

Keywords: retraction, acteoside, osteoarthritis, JAK/STAT pathway, research integrity, image duplication, BMC Complementary Medicine and Therapies, authorship dispute, inflammation, natural compounds, scientific publishing, figure manipulation

The original article, published on 11 June 2023 under the title Effects of silane-functionalized nanocomposites in superabsorbent polymer and its reinforcing effects in cementitious materials, appeared in volume 81 of Polymer Bulletin on pages 3479 to 3512. It was authored by V. S. Sujitha and B. Ramesh of the Department of Civil Engineering at Saveetha School of Engineering, Saveetha Institute of Medical and Technical Sciences in Chennai, India, together with Joseph Raj Xavier of the same institution’s Department of Chemistry, who served as corresponding author. The work sat at the intersection of polymer chemistry and civil engineering, exploring whether superabsorbent polymers modified with functionalized nanoparticles could simultaneously improve the mechanical strength and durability of cement-based materials. Such research is of considerable practical interest, because concrete is the most widely used man-made material on Earth and even incremental improvements in its performance carry enormous economic and environmental weight.

The scientific premise of the retracted study was grounded in real and active research directions. Superabsorbent polymers are cross-linked hydrophilic networks capable of absorbing and retaining many times their own weight in water. In concrete technology, they are investigated for internal curing, a process in which stored water is released gradually into the hardening cement matrix to mitigate autogenous shrinkage and reduce cracking in low water-to-cement ratio mixes. Silane functionalization, meanwhile, involves attaching organosilicon groups to particle surfaces to improve their compatibility and dispersion within both polymer networks and inorganic matrices like hydrated cement. Nanoscale alumina and related oxide fillers are widely studied as reinforcements because they can accelerate hydration, refine pore structure, and improve mechanical properties. Combining these ideas, the authors reported on how silane-functionalized nanocomposites incorporated into superabsorbent polymers might reinforce cementitious materials, a claim that, if validated, would have been of genuine interest to materials scientists and structural engineers alike.

According to the retraction notice, however, concerns were raised after publication regarding several of the figures that supported these claims. The problems identified by the Editors-in-Chief span multiple independent analytical techniques, which is significant because each technique is supposed to provide a separate line of evidence. The X-ray diffraction data presented in Figure 2 were found to have highly similar background noise patterns. In X-ray diffraction, researchers identify crystalline phases by the positions and intensities of diffraction peaks, but the background noise pattern is a fingerprint of the instrument, the sample holder, and the measurement conditions. When two supposedly distinct samples produce diffraction patterns whose backgrounds are nearly identical, it suggests the patterns may not have been collected independently, undermining the claim that different nanocomposite formulations were actually measured.

The concerns extended beyond diffraction. Figure 4c, according to the notice, appears highly similar to Figure 1 in a 2011 study by Sommer, Kern and Gadow on the injection moulding of alumina-chromia-yttria composites published in the Journal of Ceramic Science and Technology. The energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy plots in Figure 4 were found to contain repetitive patterns and unusual features in the background noise. Energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, or EDX, is typically performed alongside scanning electron microscopy to determine the elemental composition of a sample at specific locations. Each EDX spectrum arises from the characteristic X-rays emitted by elements in the sample when struck by an electron beam, overlaid on a background continuum. Repetitive spectral patterns across supposedly different samples or regions, along with anomalous background features, are classic red flags that spectra may have been duplicated or manipulated rather than independently acquired.

Perhaps the most striking allegation concerns Figure 5c, which the Editors-in-Chief state appears highly similar to an image of aluminium oxide available on a commercial website, specifically a product listing for an aluminum oxide dispersion of gamma-phase nanoparticles with a purity of 99.99 percent and particle sizes of one to ten nanometers, accessed on 13 February 2024. If a figure presented as original characterization data closely matches a vendor’s product image, it raises the possibility that the figure does not depict the authors’ own experimental results at all. In addition, the notice reports that some of the data in Figure 11a appear highly similar to data presented in another study by the same authors, published in 2023 in the Journal of Building Engineering under the title Influence of nano alumina reinforced superabsorbent polymer on mechanical, durability, microstructural and rheological properties of cementitious materials. Duplication of data across papers from the same group suggests that the same measurements may have been recycled to support different experimental narratives, a practice that inflates the apparent productivity of a research program while eroding the reliability of each individual publication.

The retraction notice also identifies an internal inconsistency that, while less dramatic than the image concerns, speaks to the overall care taken in the study. The scanning electron microscopy information stated in the methodology does not match the image labelling in the figures. Scanning electron microscopy is central to claims about nanocomposite dispersion and microstructure, and the instrument parameters, magnifications, and sample descriptions attached to micrographs are what allow readers to interpret and reproduce the images. A mismatch between what the methods section says was done and what the figure labels indicate is the kind of discrepancy that peer review and post-publication scrutiny are designed to catch, and its presence alongside the image concerns compounded the editors’ doubts about the integrity of the dataset as a whole.

Crucially, the retraction was not based on the image concerns alone. The Editors-in-Chief requested the underlying raw data from the authors, and the authors did not provide it. In modern research integrity practice, the ability to produce raw data is often the decisive factor in resolving concerns. Instrument outputs such as diffraction patterns, EDX spectra, and electron micrographs are generated as digital files with embedded metadata, and legitimate authors can typically supply these files, along with laboratory records, to demonstrate that their figures derive from genuine measurements. When raw data cannot be produced, editors are left with no way to rebut evidence of duplication or manipulation. The notice states plainly that the Editors-in-Chief therefore no longer have confidence in the presented data, which is the standard threshold for retraction. Equally notable is the authors’ silence: the notice records that the authors have not responded to any correspondence from the editor or publisher about the retraction.

The retraction carries practical consequences for the broader field. Research on superabsorbent polymers and nanomodified cementitious materials is a fast-moving area in which results are frequently cited in reviews, meta-analyses, and subsequent experimental studies. A retracted paper’s findings can no longer be treated as reliable evidence, and researchers building on the reported improvements in mechanical or durability performance must now disregard them. The case also illustrates the technical sophistication of modern image forensics. Background noise patterns in XRD traces, repetitive features in EDX spectra, and matches to commercial product images are detectable because analytical data carry statistical and instrumental signatures that are difficult to fabricate convincingly. Journals increasingly apply such screening both before and after publication, and the Polymer Bulletin notice demonstrates that these checks continue to operate years after a paper appears in print.

For readers and practitioners, the episode is a reminder of how the scientific record self-corrects, imperfectly but persistently. The retracted article remains retrievable online, as retracted papers typically do, but it is now watermarked and linked to the retraction notice so that anyone encountering it understands its status. The original claims about silane-functionalized nanocomposites in superabsorbent polymers and their reinforcing effects in cementitious materials have not been disproven in any general sense; rather, the specific evidence offered in this paper can no longer be trusted, and the burden of demonstrating such effects now falls back on properly documented, reproducible studies. The authors, affiliated with Saveetha School of Engineering in Chennai, have not publicly commented on the retraction. As construction materials research continues to attract intense interest for its potential to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment, the case underscores a simple principle: extraordinary and useful claims in nanocomposite cement technology, as in any field, must rest on data that can be produced, examined, and independently verified.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a study on silane-functionalized nanocomposites in superabsorbent polymers for cementitious materials

Article Title: Retraction Note: Effects of silane-functionalized nanocomposites in superabsorbent polymer and its reinforcing effects in cementitious materials

Article References: Sujitha, V. S., Ramesh, B., & Xavier, J. R. (2026). Retraction Note: Effects of silane-functionalized nanocomposites in superabsorbent polymer and its reinforcing effects in cementitious materials. Polymer Bulletin, 83(12), Article 651. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00289-026-06701-1

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1007/s00289-026-06701-1

Keywords: retraction, Polymer Bulletin, nanocomposites, superabsorbent polymer, cementitious materials, silane functionalization, X-ray diffraction, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, research integrity, nano alumina, image duplication

The original study, published on 4 February 2019, reported that circNRIP1 promoted the growth and spread of gastric cancer cells by binding and sequestering microRNA-149-5p, thereby relieving repression of AKT1 and activating the mTOR pathway, a central growth-control circuit in many cancers. The circular RNA sponge hypothesis was one of the most fashionable ideas in cancer biology at the time: circular RNAs, which lack the free ends of linear messenger RNAs and are therefore unusually stable, were proposed to soak up microRNAs and prevent them from silencing their protein-coding targets. Hundreds of papers in the late 2010s described competing endogenous RNA networks of this kind, and circNRIP1 became one of the frequently cited examples in the gastric cancer literature.

The retraction notice lays out the specific concerns with unusual precision. Figure 5B of the paper, which was supposed to show microscopy or assay images related to microRNA-149-5p, appears highly similar to Figure 6B, which was supposed to show the effects of silencing circNRIP1 with small interfering RNA. In a well-constructed experiment, those two conditions should produce distinct images, since they represent different experimental manipulations. When images from nominally different conditions are highly similar or identical, it raises the possibility that the same raw data were reused to support different conclusions, whether through careless figure assembly or something more troubling.

The problems extended beyond the paper itself. The notice states that a panel in Figure 5E of the retracted article, labeled as circNRIP1 overexpression at day one, appears highly similar to a panel in a separate 2018 publication by largely overlapping authors in the Journal of Experimental and Clinical Cancer Research, specifically a panel showing a microRNA-133a-3p mimic at day ten. Another Figure 5E panel, labeled circNRIP1 knockdown at day ten, appears highly similar to a control knockdown panel at day ten in yet another publication. Within the retracted paper itself, the PFK and P62 western blots in Figure 6A also appear highly similar to each other, a red flag because those proteins were supposed to reflect different biological readouts, in that case glycolytic enzyme expression and autophagy flux respectively.

The overlapping publications implicated by the notice have themselves faced consequences. The 2018 paper on microRNA-133a-3p, which reported that this microRNA represses gastric cancer growth and metastasis by blocking autophagy-mediated glutaminolysis, received its own retraction in July 2024. A third related paper, published in Cell Death and Disease in 2021, described circular RNA UBE2Q2 promoting malignant progression of gastric cancer through STAT3-mediated autophagy and glycolysis. The recurrence of the same themes, autophagy, glycolysis, and circular RNAs, across the group’s output is precisely what made cross-paper image comparisons possible, and the notice indicates that the sheer number of concerns overwhelmed the authors’ explanations.

A second, independent line of concern involved the cell lines used in the study. The authors employed SGC-7901, BGC-823, and MGC-803, three gastric cancer cell lines that have been reported in the scientific literature to be contaminated with HeLa cells, the notorious cervical cancer line that has silently infiltrated laboratories worldwide since the 1950s. The notice specifies that these contaminated lines were used in Figures 1E, 2B through 2D, and 3B through 3E. Cell line misidentification is one of the most pervasive quality problems in cancer research, because experiments attributed to gastric cancer may in fact have been performed on HeLa-derived cells, invalidating the tissue-specific conclusions the authors drew about gastric tumor biology.

The authors did respond to the initial concerns, according to the notice. They explained that the image duplications arose from similar experimental design and errors in figure preparation across the three articles, and they asserted that the images presented in Figure 5E were correct for this particular study. That explanation, however, did not satisfy the journal. Given the high number of concerns, spanning duplicated images within the paper, duplication across multiple external publications, and the use of contaminated cell lines, the Editor-in-Chief concluded that confidence in the presented data could not be maintained. Notably, the authors have not responded to any correspondence from the publisher about the retraction notice itself.

The retraction carries technical lessons for anyone following the circular RNA literature. The competing endogenous RNA framework depends on a chain of evidence: that the circular RNA is genuinely expressed and stable, that it physically binds the claimed microRNA, that the microRNA target is derepressed, and that the downstream kinase pathway, here AKT1 and mTOR, changes accordingly. Western blots for proteins like PFK, a rate-limiting glycolytic enzyme, and P62, an autophagy receptor whose accumulation signals impaired autophagic degradation, were meant to anchor the metabolic arm of that story. When the underlying images cannot be trusted, every downstream inference, from sponge activity to pathway activation, loses its empirical foundation, which is why journals treat figure-level integrity as inseparable from the scientific claim itself.

For the broader field, the case illustrates how the explosion of circular RNA papers in the late 2010s created conditions in which errors and duplications could propagate. Similar experimental designs across a laboratory’s projects make accidental figure mix-ups more likely, but they also make deliberate reuse harder to detect at peer review, since reviewers rarely have access to a group’s unpublished datasets. Databases now flag cross-references between retracted papers, and tools that detect duplicated image regions have become standard parts of post-publication scrutiny. The fact that this retraction was finalized years after the original publication, and after a companion paper had already been retracted, shows that the process works, albeit slowly.

Readers who cited the circNRIP1 paper, or who built experiments on the claim that microRNA-149-5p derepresses AKT1/mTOR signaling in gastric cancer, should now treat those findings as unsupported. The retraction notice, published in volume 25 of Molecular Cancer as article number 228, is freely accessible, and the original article remains online but is watermarked as retracted. The episode is a reminder that striking molecular mechanisms, especially those involving elegant regulatory circuits like circular RNA sponges, deserve scrutiny not just for their biological plausibility but for the provenance of every image and every cell line that supports them.

Subject of Research: Retraction of a gastric cancer circular RNA study due to image duplication and cell line contamination concerns

Article Title: Retraction Note: Circular RNA circNRIP1 acts as a microRNA-149-5p sponge to promote gastric cancer progression via the AKT1/mTOR pathway

Article References: Zhang, X., Wang, S., Wang, H., Cao, J., Huang, X., Chen, Z., Xu, P., Sun, G., Xu, J., Lv, J., & Xu, Z. (2026). Retraction Note: Circular RNA circNRIP1 acts as a microRNA-149-5p sponge to promote gastric cancer progression via the AKT1/mTOR pathway. Molecular Cancer, 25(1), Article 228. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12943-026-02804-5

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.1186/s12943-026-02804-5

Keywords: circNRIP1, gastric cancer, retraction, microRNA-149-5p, AKT1/mTOR pathway, circular RNA, cell line contamination, HeLa, image duplication, Molecular Cancer, research integrity, autophagy