Silencing of Long Non-Coding RNA-HCG18 Inhibits the Tumorigenesis of Gastric Cancer Through Blocking PI3K/Akt Pathway [Retraction]

Ma F, An K, Li Y. Onco Targets Ther. 2020;13:2225–2234.

The Editor and Publisher of OncoTargets and Therapy wish to retract the published paper.

The journal was notified of possible image manipulation and duplication in:

● Figure 2D - panels MGC803 Blank, si-NC, si-HCG18 and panels AGS Blank, si-NC, si-HCG18, which all appeared to share duplicated elements
● Figure 3A - panels AGS 0 h si-NC and 48 h Blank, which appeared to show duplicated elements shared between both images
● Figure 5C - panels PI si-NC, si-HCG18 and si-HCG18+740-P
● Figure 6A - panels Mock 4 w, si-HCG18 2 w and si-HCG18 4 w, which appeared to show image splicing and irregular shadowing

The authors were unable to provide the necessary raw data for their study and the editor determined the findings of the study were no longer valid.

Our decision-making was informed by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and the COPE guidelines on retraction.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.

This retraction relates to this paper