Retraction: “MicroRNA-337 inhibits cell proliferation and invasion of cervical cancer through directly targeting specificity protein 1”

At the request of Sage and the Journal Editor, the following article has been retracted:

Dong, W., Li, B., Wang, J., Song, Y., Zhang, Z., & Fu, C. MicroRNA-337 inhibits cell proliferation and invasion of cervical cancer through directly targeting specificity protein 1. Tumor Biology. 2017; 39(6). https://doi.org/10.1177/1010428317711323

The first author contacted Sage to request a retraction of this article. During investigation of this request, Sage became aware of concerns raised on PubPeer regarding the following figures in the article:

• Figure 5D (Cell invasion assay in HeLa cells transfected with miR-337 mimics + pcDNA3.1-Sp1) appears to overlap with Figure 3B (Cell invasion assay in AGS cells transfected with negative control) in a retracted article by different authors ¹

• Figure 2E (Cell invasion assay in HeLa cells transfected with miR-337 mimics) appears to overlap with:

○ Figure 2C (Transwell invasion assay in SW480 cells with miR-329 mimics) in a retracted article by different authors ²

○ Figure 2E (Cell invasion in U87 cells transfected with miR-216b mimic) in a published article by different authors ³

○ Figure 5D (Transwell migration assay in H460 cells with IGF-1R siRNA) in a retracted article by different authors, ⁴

• Figure 2E (Cell invasion assay in HeLa cells transfected with miR-NC) appears to overlap with Figure 2C (Transwell invasion assay in SW480 cells with miR-NC) in a retracted article by different authors ²

• Figure 2F (Cell invasion assay in Ca-Ski cells transfected with miR-337 mimics) appears to overlap with Figure 2C (Transwell invasion assay in HCT116 cells with miR-329 mimics) in a retracted article by different authors ²

• Figure 2F (Cell invasion assay in Ca-Ski cells transfected with miR-NC) appears to overlap with:

○ Figure 3B (Transwell cell invasion assay of SUNE-1 cells transfected with miR-NC) in a retracted article by different authors ⁵

○ Figure 2C (Cell invasion assay in U251 cells transiently transfected with miR-NC) in a retracted article by different authors ⁶

○ Figure 2C (Cell migration assay in HeLa cells transfected with NC) in a retracted article by different authors ⁷

○ Figure 2C (Transwell invasion assay in HCT116 cells with miR-NC) in a retracted article by different authors ²

The authors responded to the request for raw, unedited and uncropped images to explain that they are unable to provide the original data due to laboratory server failure. The authors stated that they would like to proceed with the retraction of this article.

Following review by the Journal Editor and due to unresolved concerns about image integrity that call into question the validity of the findings, this article has been retracted.

The authors did not respond to the decision to retract.