Abstract
The Editor-in-Chief of Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers officially retracts the article entitled, “C/EBPβ Promotion of MMP3-Dependent Tumor Cell Invasion and Association with Metastasis in Colorectal Cancer by Yuanyuan Ji, Junkuo Li, Pan Li, Li Wang, Haijun Yang, and Guozhong Jiang.” (Genet Test Mol Biomarkers, 22(1):2018;5-10; doi: 10.1089/gtmb.2017.0113).
Dr. Guozhong Jiang contacted the journal's editorial office requesting to replace figure 3 in the published article, stating:
“…we recently find out that the author, who was a former student in our group, made unproper editing with the pictures in this figure. Since we cannot find the original pictures to correct the wrongdoing, we have re-performed experiments and re-done the analysis, resulting in this new figure. We would like to ask you to use this new figure to replace the original and improper figure in the article, while the figure legend remains unchanged.” [sic]
An independent analysis of the figures confirmed image manipulation. Since Dr. Jiang stated the authors “cannot find” the original images, the journal officially retracts the article since the “re-performed experiments” and “re-done” analyses were not properly peer reviewed.
All authors were notified via email of the decision to retract, utilizing the email addresses provided to the journal at the time of submission in 2018, though no responses were received.
The Editor and Publisher of Genetic Testing and Molecular Biomarkers are committed to preserving the veracity of scientific literature and the community it serves.