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Thesis information
Ovarian cancer is one of the leading causes of cancer-related mortality in women worldwide, and the highly expressed OC-2 gene has been shown to be a potential regulator of ovarian cancer development and angiogenesis.
In September 2020, an article published in the journal Frontiers in oncology (IF 4.848), "CRISPR/Cas9-Mediated OC-2 Editing Inhibits the Tumor Growth and Angiogenesis of Ovarian Cancer," found that OC-2 is a key regulator of apoptosis and angiogenesis in ovarian cancer. By applying CRISPR/Cas9 technology to transcription factor pathways, anti-tumor gene therapies with broad roles can be developed.
The authors of this paper are from the Department of Biology of Jinan University, Guangdong Provincial Engineering Research Center for Antibody Drugs and Immunoassays, and the first authors are Tongyi Lu (transliteration Lu Tongyi), Ligang Zhang (transliteration Zhang Ligang), Wenhui Zhu (transliteration Zhu Wenhui), and the corresponding author is Ning Deng(transliteration Deng Ning).
Thesis questioned
Four months ago, the article was questioned about the inappropriate use of several images, including the possible stitching of Western blot bands, and the repetition of some elements of histological staining.
For example, the immunohistochemical staining plot of Figure 7 has overlap between different groups:
The Western blot band in Figure 5 has suspicious stitching and copying traces:
Some of the images in Figure 4 duplicate those of a tongyi lu published in another magazine article in 2018:
Fund Information
The research is supported by a number of fund projects, including the National Natural Science Foundation of China (81972705), the Guangdong Science and Technology Program (2015B020211009 and 2016A010105008) and the Guangzhou Science and Technology Program (201604020099).
Withdrawal instructions
The journal Frontiers in Oncology retracted the article for the following reasons:
After publication, readers raised concerns about the data issues in Figures 5 and 7. The journal conducted a survey, but the authors failed to provide a satisfactory explanation. The withdrawal was approved by the editor-in-chief of frontiers in Oncology and the editor-in-chief of Frontiers. The author agrees to this decision to withdraw.
Reference Information
https://pubpeer.com/publications/8B820D670E1A1B49FA5AFAC7FD557B#11
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34041039/