Hsp90 Inhibitor NMS-E973 Exerts the Anticancer Effect Against Glioblastoma via Induction of PUMA-Mediated Apoptosis [Retraction]

Sun L, Yang S, Chi G, Jin X. Onco Targets Ther. 2018;11:1583–1593.

We, the Editor and Publisher of the journal OncoTargets and Therapy have retracted the published article.

Following publication of the article, concerns were raised about the duplication of images from Figure 6 with images from an unrelated article. Specifically,

• Images for Figure 6E, TUNEL, U87, Untreated and NMS-E973, have been duplicated with images for Figure 6C, TUNEL, WT, Control and 17-DMAG, respectively, from He K, Zheng X, Zhang L, Yu J. Hsp90 Inhibitors Promote p53-Dependent Apoptosis through PUMA and Bax. Mol Cancer Ther. 2013;12(11):2559–2568. https://doi.org/10.1158/1535-7163.MCT-13-0284.

The corresponding author did not respond to our queries and was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for how the images came to be duplicated or provide satisfactory original data for the study. As verifying the validity of published work is core to the integrity of the scholarly record, the Publisher and Editor requested to retract the article and the corresponding author was notified of this.

We have been informed in our decision-making by our editorial policies and COPE guidelines.

The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.