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