Abstract
At the request of Sage and the Managing Editor, the following article has been retracted:
Wei C, Xun AY, Wei XX, et al. Bifidobacteria Expressing Tumstatin Protein for Antitumor Therapy in Tumor-Bearing Mice. Technology in Cancer Research & Treatment. 2015;15(3):498-508. doi:10.1177/1533034615581977
Sage was made aware of a PubPeer post raising concerns about the welfare of the animals used in this study.
The post noted that in Figure 4D, the graph shows the tumor volume of some of the mice groups exceeds the humane endpoint in international guidelines on animal ethics. In Figure 4B, the size of the tumors on the mice also seems to exceed these standards. An internal assessment by editorial board members agreed with the concerns raised.
Despite multiple attempts at contacting the authors for comment and their ethical approval and study protocol, we have not received a response.
Due to our inability to verify this study underwent proper ethical review for their animal research, this article has been retracted.
The authors did not respond when notified of this retraction decision.