Fourth author appears to currently be affiliated with University of Pittsburgh, and has the unfortunate distinction of appearing as coauthor of multiple papers with similar image concerns while at different institutions: https://pubpeer.com/search?q=Shoumei+Bai
Retracted May 4, 2022
The authors note the following:
“For 18 years, our study was considered to be the first to demonstrate methylation-mediated suppression of PTPRO in human tumors and its tumor suppressor potential. However, due to recent events we believe that the responsible course of action is to retract the paper.
Following an investigation, The Ohio State University identified evidence of duplicated data in Figs. 2 and 5A. Their findings include:
‘In Figure 2, the reuse of the same data in the 18S rRNA blot in lanes 1 and 2 and in lanes 7 and 8, and also in lanes 3 and 4, (with a horizontal mirror image). Figure 2 also includes the false labeling of normal (N) and tumor (T) matched pairs #3 and #4 when compared to the original RT-PCR research record.
In Figure 5A, the reuse of the same data for serum starved images for both A549/vector and A549/PTPRO.’
Although we have the raw data to demonstrate the accuracy of Fig. 2 and submit a correction, we do not have access to the raw data for Fig. 5A. We stand by the reproducibility of the experimental data and the conclusions of the paper because the microscopic image in Fig. 5A was only a representative field of the several fields that were counted to provide the quantitative data in Fig. 5B, and we believe that the conclusions drawn from this figure have been validated by the thymidine block experiment (Figs. 5A, Bottom and 5B) and colony formation in soft agar (Fig. 4C).”
Takashi Tsuruo died on December 16, 2008.
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