Abstract
Human Gene Therapy officially retracts the paper entitled, “MALAT1-Driven Inhibition of Wnt Signal Impedes Proliferation and Inflammation in Fibroblast-Like Synoviocytes Through CTNNB1 Promoter Methylation in Rheumatoid Arthritis,” by Guo-Qing Li, Yu-Xuan Fang, Ying Liu, Fan-Ru Meng, Xia Wu, Chun-Wang Zhang, Yu Zhang, Dan Liu, and Bo Gao (Hum Gene Ther. 2019;30(8)1008-1022; doi: 10.1089/hum.2018.212)
A post in the For Better Science blog identified a large group of published papers across many journals as potential submissions from paper mills in Asia, 1 with the article named above included in that list.
The publisher re-examined the paper using enhanced processes and technical checks that they have implemented. The result of this re-evaluation suggested that the paper was likely submitted by a third-party service consistent with a paper mill submission.
The publisher made multiple attempts to contact the corresponding author of the paper, Dr. Bo Gao, as well as the co-authors, to request the raw data files from which the paper was derived. When no response was received, the publisher determined that retraction was the necessary action.
The Editors and Publisher of Human Gene Therapy are committed to preserving the integrity of the scientific literature and the community it serves, and do not tolerate any misconduct.