This is a retraction of: Hongfang Zhang, Honglei Luo, Zhenzhen Jiang, Jing Yue, Qiang Hou, Ruifei Xie, Shixiu Wu, Fractionated irradiation-induced EMT-like phenotype conferred radioresistance in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma, Journal of Radiation Research, Volume 57, Issue 4, July 2016, Pages 370–380, https://doi.org/10.1093/jrr/rrw030
The Editors were alerted in January 2025 to the extensive similarities between the images presented in the article and those published by the same author group in Oncotarget in 2015, following a post on PubPeer (https://pubpeer.com/publications/23663755A68E9F3A10F571C52C14D5).
Specifically, Figure 5B is from Figure 2A: Hongfang Zhang, Honglei Luo, Zhaoyang Hu, et al. (2015) Targeting WISP1 to sensitize esophageal squamous cell carcinoma to irradiation, Oncotarget, 6:6218-6234, DOI: 10.18632/oncotarget.3358. Figure 1B is from Figure 3C and Figure 2B is from Figure 3B of the same work. The Oncotarget article was published online on 31 January, 2015 and the Journal of Radiation Research received the article in question on 2 December, 2015. It was accepted on 9 February, 2016.
The Editors contacted the corresponding author, who explained that the misuse of some western blotting blots of GAPDH, the unnecessary repetition of some GAPDH blots, the misuse of the result of E-cadherin in Figure 1B, and the use of the result from the same patient were caused by the completion of the two papers at adjacent times.
The editors have investigated the concerns raised and decided to retract this paper as the image duplication described above undermines the reliability of the study. The decision has been made in accordance with guidance developed by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).