Abstract
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The senior author's statement is as follows:
“It has come to our attention that results presented in our published paper (REF) in Stem Cells and Development were misrepresented as being data obtained from rat embryonic stem (ES) cells when, in fact, they were data collected by Dr. Yang during rat induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cell studies in our laboratory. Additional supplemental data were also fabricated. At a minimum, the images of rat ES cells in culture after 10 passages in Figure 1 are, in fact, rat iPS cells grown in different culture media conditions. The karyotype image shown in Figure 2 is factually attributed to an iPS culture, whereas a review of the rat ES culture karyotype report actually revealed a mixed karyotype in that specific culture. In addition, the expression of genes in rat ES cells shown in Supplemental Figure 1 do not match Dr. Yang's experimental notes. On behalf of my co-authors, I apologize to the readers, reviewers, and editors of Stem Cells and Development for the inconvenience this has caused and request at this time that our article be retracted.”
Stem Cells and Development is dedicated to upholding the integrity of scientific publishing, and we commend Dr. Geurts for the responsibility he has demonstrated in the stewardship of this situation. All of the co-authors have indicated their understanding and agreement with the retraction with the exception of first author, Sheng Yang, who understands the rationale but disagrees with the retraction.