Retraction:

Gautam Adhikary¹, Daniel Grun¹, H. Richard Alexander⁷, Joseph S. Friedberg^4,5, Wen Xu¹, Jeffrey W. Keillor⁶, Sivaveera Kandasamy⁵, Richard L. Eckert^1,2,3,4

¹ Departments of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
² Department of Dermatology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
³ Department of Reproductive Biology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
⁴ Greenebaum Comprehensive Cancer Center, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
⁵ Department of Surgery and Division of General and Surgical Oncology, University of Maryland School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland, USA
⁶ Department of Chemistry, University of Ottawa, Ottawa, ON, CA
⁷ Department of Surgery, Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School, New Brunswick, New Jersey, USA

Published: December 31, 2025

Copyright: © 2025 Adhikary et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

This article has been retracted: The University of Maryland, Baltimore, conducted an internal investigation which found that the data integrity of this article has been compromised. The following errors were discovered:

Figure 1I has been manipulated by inserting two (2) cells in the field. Forensic analysis shows that the two (2) cells were not part of the original picture.
Figure 3C has been manipulated by inserting three (3) cells in the control field. Forensic analysis shows that the three (3) cells were not part of the original picture.
Figure 4B was manipulated by moving five (5) cells into the field to increase the cell density of the field.
Figure 4B was manipulated by erasing a cell from the 50 μM NC9 treatment.
Figure 4B was manipulated by changing the labeling on the treatment condition.
The raw data located on the lab server has a file name showing a treatment condition of 1 μM NC9, while the final figure is showing a control condition with no treatment: 0 μM NC9.
As presented, Figures 1I, 3C and 4B are fabricated in order to support the data presented in the Article.

The authors initially contacted the Oncotarget journal to request a correction, stating that the image issues were mistaken placements and providing corrected images. However, the Scientific Integrity Office independently verified the results and discovered additional duplication of Western blots in Figure 5I (panels 2 and 14). In light of the number of necessary corrections and in agreement with the University of Maryland committee’s recommendation, the Editorial decision has been made to retract this paper.

Original article: Oncotarget. 2018; 9:34495–34505. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.26130.