Retraction - Retraction - Long non-coding RNA HOTAIR acts as a competing endogenous RNA to promote malignant melanoma progression

Sep 30, 2026

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Retraction notice for the Oncotarget article “Long non-coding RNA HOTAIR acts as a competing endogenous RNA to promote malignant melanoma progression by sponging miR-152-3p.” The journal concluded its investigation after discovering multiple image misrepresentations/manipulations, including flipped or reused Western blot images, duplicated wound healing and transwell assay images across figures and earlier papers by the same first author, and Western blots lacking background with spliced bands that do not match paired total protein/phosphoprotein blots. Authors acknowledged mistakes and provided corrected figures, but failed to supply original, uncropped, unmodified images required to verify corrections, leading to retraction.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

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Pages1

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Retraction notice

Findings of image misrepresentations

Authors’ acknowledgements and corrected figures

Editorial decision and communication

Original article and references

[www.oncotarget.com](www.oncotarget.com) Oncotarget, 2025, Vol. 16, pp: 892-892 Retraction Retraction: Long non-coding RNA HOTAIR acts as a competing endogenous RNA to promote malignant melanoma progression by sponging miR-152-3p Wenkang Luan 1,*, Rubo Li2,*, Liang Liu3,*, Xin Ni4,*, Yan Shi3, Yun Xia1, Jinlong Wang 1, Feng Lu 1 and Bin Xu1 1 Department of Plastic Surgery, Affiliated People’s Hospital of Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China 2 Department of Neurosurgery, Affiliated People’s Hospital of Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China 3 Department of Neurosurgery, Nanjing First Hospital, Nanjing Medical University, Nanjing, China 4 Department of Gastroenterology, Affiliated Hospital of Jiangsu University, Zhenjiang, China *These authors have contributed equally to this work Published: Deceember 31, 2025 Copyright: © 2025 Luan et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY 4. 0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. This article has been retracted: Oncotarget has concluded its investigation of this paper. Multiple image misrepresentations/ manipulations were discovered. Specifically, the following issues were found: • Figure 2J: The Western blot image for N-cadherin in A375 cells was horizontally and vertically flipped and reused as E-cadherin. • Figure 2F: The image for the wound healing assay (NC 24 h) is a duplicate of a NC 24 h image in Figure 6F. • Figure 5L: The Western blot images lack background and contain several splices. All paired total protein and phosphoproteins blots do not match. • Figure 5G: The miR152-3p image of the transwell assay was reused in Figure 4D of article [1] and Figure 5B of article [2], both published earlier by the same first author. • Figure 2H: The NC and si-HOTAIR panels overlap with Figure 5B of article [2] . • Figure 6H: The si-HOTAIR image of the transwell assay was reused in Figure 4D of article [1] . • Figure 6H: All transwell assay images were reused in Figure 5C of article [3], where Luan W. is a co-author. The authors acknowledged mistakes in Figures 2H, 5G, and 6G–6I . They also admitted to the misuse of representative pictures of immunohistochemical staining when assembling Figure 7E and provided corrected figures. However, their explanation was not satisfactory, and they failed to provide the original, uncropped, and unmodified images necessary to verify the corrections. Given the extent of necessary corrections, the editorial decision was to retract the article. The authors have been notified of this decision. Original article: Oncotarget. 2017; 8:85401–85414. [https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.19910](https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.19910) REFERENCES 1. Luan W, Shi Y, Zhou Z, Xia Y, Wang J. circRNA_0084043 promote malignant melanoma progression via miR-153-3p/Snail axis. Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2018; 502:22–29. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2018.05.114](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2018.05.114). [PubMed]. Erratum in: Biochem Biophys Res Commun. 2022; 587:168–69. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2021.12.001](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bbrc.2021.12.001). [PubMed] 2. Luan W, Ding Y, Ma S, Ruan H, Wang J, Lu F. Long noncoding RNA LINC00518 acts as a competing endogenous RNA to promote the metastasis of malignant melanoma via miR-204-5p/AP1S2 axis. Cell Death Dis. 2019; 10:855. [https://doi.org/10.1038/s41419-](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41419-)[ ](https://doi.org/10.1038/s41419-)[019-2090-3](019-2090-3.)[.](019-2090-3.) [PubMed] 3. Ni X, Ding Y, Yuan H, Shao J, Yan Y, Guo R, Luan W, Xu M. Long non-coding RNA ZEB1-AS1 promotes colon adenocarcinoma malignant progression via miR-455-3p/PAK2 axis. Cell Prolif. 2020; 53:e12723. [https://doi.org/10.1111/cpr.12723](https://doi.org/10.1111/cpr.12723). [PubMed]. Erratum in: Cell Prolif. 2022; 55:e13176. [https://doi.org/10.1111

FAQs

Why was the article retracted?

Oncotarget concluded its investigation after discovering multiple image misrepresentations/manipulations across several figures, including reused or flipped Western blots and duplicated assay images.

What types of figure problems were reported?

Reported issues include horizontally/vertically flipped Western blot reuse, duplicate wound healing and transwell images, Western blot blots lacking background with spliced bands, and inconsistencies between paired total protein and phosphoprotein blots.

Did the authors provide corrected information, and was it sufficient?

The authors acknowledged mistakes and provided corrected figures, but the explanation was not satisfactory and original, uncropped, unmodified images were not provided to verify the corrections, so the editorial decision was to retract.

Sep 30, 2026

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