Intraperitoneal Injection of Graphene Oxide Nanoparticle Accelerates Stem Cell Therapy Effects on Acute Kidney Injury [Retraction]

Foroutan T, Nafar M, Motamedi E. Stem Cells Cloning. 2020;13:21–32.

We, the Editor and Publisher of the journal Stem Cells and Cloning: Advances and Applications, have retracted the following article.

Following publication of the article, concerns were raised about the duplication of images from Figures 1 and 2 with images from unrelated articles. Specifically,

• The image for Figure 1A has been duplicated with an image from Foroutan T, Nazemi N, Tavana M, Kassaee MZ, Motamedi E, Soieshargh S, Zare Zardini H. Suspended graphene oxide nanoparticle for accelerated multilayer osteoblast attachment. J Biomed Mater Res A. 2018;106(1):293–303. https://doi.org/10.1002/jbm.a.36231.
• Images for Figure 2 have been duplicated with images for Figure 1 from Foroutan T, Ahmadi F, Moayer F, Khalvati S. Effects of intraperitoneal injection of magnetic graphene oxide on the improvement of acute liver injury induced by CCl₄. Biomater Res. 2020;24:14. https://doi.org/10.1186/s40824-020-00192-5; Figure 1B from Nasiri J, Motamedi E, Reza Naghavi M. Comparative study of adsorptive role of carbonaceous materials in removal of UV-active impurities of paclitaxel extracts. J Pharm Anal. 2015;5(6):396–399. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jpha.2015.04.004 and images from Foroutan et al, 2018.

The corresponding author was cooperative and responded to our queries but was unable to provide a satisfactory explanation for the duplicated images or provide satisfactory 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 authors were 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The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record, but it will be digitally watermarked on each page as “Retracted”.