Retraction - Retraction MicroRNA-542-3p inhibits oral squamous cell carcinoma progression by inhibiting ILK/TGF-β1/Smad2/3 signaling

Sep 30, 2026

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Retraction notice for the Oncotarget article titled “MicroRNA-542-3p inhibits oral squamous cell carcinoma progression by inhibiting ILK/TGF-β1/Smad2/3 signaling.” An image forensics investigation identified internal and external image overlaps/duplications affecting multiple figures, including GAPDH and b-actin blot reuse across different articles, misassigned blot identities, duplicated transwell assay images, and duplicated tumor images. The authors did not provide sufficient documentation to justify image originality or explain alleged image leaking, so the editors concluded the work’s integrity was compromised and retracted it.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

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Pages2

Reading Time5 min

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Retraction

Reasons for retraction based on image overlaps

Original article reference and publications

[www.oncotarget.com](www.oncotarget.com) Oncotarget, 2025, Vol. 16, pp: 871-872 Retraction Retraction: MicroRNA-542-3p inhibits oral squamous cell carcinoma progression by inhibiting ILK/TGF-β1/Smad2/3 signaling Bin Qiao 1,*, Jing-Hua Cai 1,*, Alfred King-Yin Lam 1,2 and Bao-Xia He3 1 Department of Stomatology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450052, P. R. China 2Cancer Molecular Pathology, School of Medicine and Menzies Health Institute Queensland, Griffith University, Gold Coast 4222, Australia 3 Department of Pharmacy, Affiliated Cancer Hospital of Zhengzhou University/Henan Cancer Hospital, Zhengzhou 450003, P. R. China *These authors shared the co-first author Published: Deceember 31, 2025 Copyright: © 2025 Qiao 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 This article has been retracted: An Oncotarget Image Forensics investigation has discovered instances of internal and external image overlaps and duplications. The GAPDH bands in Figure 1B also appeared as b-actin blot in Figure 6B. This b-actin blot was found in the papers published concurrently in Figure 3A of [1], Figure 4B of [2] and in Figure 2C of [3], This blot also appeared as GAPDH blot in papers [4–6]. All these papers have been retracted since. The TGF-b1 blot in Figure 1B was found as Ngfap1 blot in later published paper [7]. Figure 9A, representing transwell assay data, contains internal overlaps as well as overlaps with images in later published papers [8–10]. Additionally, we found duplicated tumor images in Figure 11B, some of which also appeared in already retracted papers [11, 12] . The authors were notified of the problems and the corresponding author Dr. Bin Qiao has claimed the images are original and that they are the victim of image leaking, but they have not provided suitable documentation to demonstrate originality or an adequate explanation of how the alleged leaking occurred. Given the number and timing of these duplications, the Editors have determined that the integrity of the published work is compromised. Therefore, the decision has been made to retract this paper. Original article: Oncotarget. 2017; 8:70761–70776. [https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.19986](https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.19986) REFERENCES 1. Shen M, Wang S, Wen X, Han XR, Wang YJ, Zhou XM, Zhang MH, Wu DM, Lu J, Zheng YL. RETRACTED: Dexmedetomidine exerts neuroprotective effect via the activation of the PI3K/Akt/mTOR signaling pathway in rats with traumatic brain injury. Biomed Pharmacother. 2017; 95:885–93. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2017.08.125](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2017.08.125). [PubMed]. Retraction in: Biomed Pharmacother. 2023; 169:115945. [https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2023.115945](https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biopha.2023.115945). [PubMed] 2. Wang YJ, Zhang ZF, Fan SH, Zhuang J, Shan Q, Han XR, Wen X, Li MQ, Hu B, Sun CH, Qiao B, Tao Q, Wu DM, et al. MicroRNA-433 inhibits oral squamous cell carcinoma cells by targeting FAK. Oncotarget. 2017; 8:100227–41. [https://doi](https://doi). org/10.18632/oncotarget.22151. [PubMed]. Retraction in: Oncotarget. 2022; 13:1033. [https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28270](https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28270) .[PubMed] 3. Wen X, Han XR, Wang YJ, Fan SH, Zhuang J, Zhang ZF, Shan Q, Li MQ, Hu B, Sun CH, Wu Q, Tan JH, Wu DM, et al. Effects of long noncoding RNA SPRY4-IT1-mediated EZH2 on the invasion and migration of lung adenocarcinoma. J Cell Biochem. 2018; 119:1827– 40. [https://doi.org/10.1002/jcb.26344](https://doi.org/10.1002/jcb.26344). [PubMed]. Retraction in: J Cell Biochem. 2021 (Suppl 1); 122:S68. [https://doi.org/10.1002/](https://doi.org/10.1002/)[ ](https://doi.org/10.1002/)[j](jcb.30036.)[cb.30036](jcb.30036.)[.](jcb.300

FAQs

What triggered the retraction of the Oncotarget paper?

An Oncotarget image forensics investigation found internal and external image overlaps and duplications across multiple figures.

Which types of figure problems were reported?

The notice reports duplicated or misused blot images (e.g., GAPDH/b-actin/TGF-β1) and duplicated tumor and transwell assay images, including matches with later or concurrently published retracted papers.

How did the editors conclude the paper’s integrity was compromised?

The editors determined that the number and timing of the duplications affected the reliability of the published findings, and the authors did not provide adequate documentation or a sufficient explanation for the alleged image leaking.

Sep 30, 2026

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