RETRACTION: Inhibiting MT2-TFE3-Dependent Autophagy Enhances Melatonin-Induced Apoptosis in Tongue Squamous Cell
Retraction:
T. Fan, H. Pi, M. Li, Z. Ren, Z. He, F. Zhu, L. Tian, M. Tu, J. Xie, M. Liu, Y. Li, M. Tan, G. Li, W. Qing, R. J. Reiter, Z. Yu, H. Wu, and Z. Zhou, "Inhibiting MT2-TFE3-Dependent Autophagy Enhances Melatonin-Induced Apoptosis in Tongue Squamous Cell Carcinoma," Journal of Pineal Research 64, no. 2 (2018): e12457, https://doi.org/10.1111/jpi.12457. The above article, published online on 08 May 2017 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) and its corrigendum (https://doi.org/10.1111/jpi.12645), has been retracted by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Gianluca Tosini; and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. A third party brought the publisher's attention to a report on PubPeer [1] which suggested that the row of BAX bands in Figure 7E had been duplicated in Figure 8E and represented as CL-PARP following a vertical flip, while the row of GAPDH bands in Figure 7E had also likely been duplicated with further brightness changes and vertical resizing. Additionally, the row of CL-PARP bands in Figure 1B had been duplicated in Figure 2B and represented as SQSTM1 following a horizontal flip, while the row of GAPDH bands had also been duplicated between those same figures. While the corrigendum published online on 28 March 2020 corrected the duplication in Figure 2B, the corrigendum did not address how the mistake was made and did not address the duplications between Figure 7E and 8E. Further investigation by the publisher also found that most of the row of p-TFE3 bands in Figure 6A had been potentially duplicated from another article which shares one of the same authors [Chen et al. 2016 (https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.12894)]. Both articles represented the data as being from different samples. Additionally, one further potential duplication between the c-TFEB and Histone H3 bands in Figure 4B was also detected. The authors responded to an inquiry by the publisher and presented original data as well as original experimental documentation. A review of these data by the publisher found that, while some of the bands in question were not duplicated, there were further discrepancies between the labeling of the original data and the data presented in the article. There were also further discrepancies between the presentation of the original data and the data included in the corrigendum. Following contact with the authors, an additional round of checks found further evidence of image duplication in the supplementary data. Part of the MT2 band in Figure S2A was potentially shared with the p-P70S6K band in Supplementary Figure S4B. Part of the GAPDH band in Figure S3A was shared with the GAPDH band in Figure S3B. A portion of the GAPDH band in Figure S4A was duplicated and represented as P70S6K in Figure S4C. Lastly, a portion of the row of GAPDH bands in Figure S3A was duplicated in Figure 6B in the main article text and represented as Histone H3 while the BAX band in Figure S5 was duplicated in Figure 4B in the main article text and represented as Histone H3. The Retraction has been agreed to because the evidence of image duplication of different samples within this work fundamentally compromises the editors' confidence in the results presented in this article. The authors were informed of the retraction. Reference 1. Phytotoma raimondii. Comments on "Inhibiting MT2-TFE3-Dependent Autophagy Enhances Melatonin-Induced Apoptosis in Tongue Squamous Cell Carcinoma," PubPeer, February 2020. https://pubpeer.com/publications/982C03B89308C90F5E87B7A19843AC.
