Ginsenoside Rg1 protects human retinal pigment epithelial ARPE-19 cells from toxicity of high glucose by up-regulation of miR-26a
Authors: Guangli Sun
Xiuying Chen
Qianqian Shi
Longjiang Cui
Lili Wang
Journal: Life sciences (2019)
Discipline: BIOLOGY & BIOCHEMISTRY
Keywords: Diabetic retinopathy; ERK/Wnt/Œ≤-catenin; Ginsenoside Rg1; High glucose; microRNA-26a.
Affiliations: Department of Ophthalmology, Henan Eye Institute, Henan Eye Hospital, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou 450003, China., Key Laboratory of Advanced Drug Preparation Technologies, Ministry of Education of China, Co-innovation Center of Henan Province for New Drug R&D and Preclinical Safety, School of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450000, China., Department of Ophthalmology, The First Affiliated Hospital of Zhengzhou University, Zhengzhou 450000, China., Department of Ophthalmology, People's Hospital of Zhengzhou, Zhengzhou 450000, China., Department of Ophthalmology, Henan Eye Institute, Henan Eye Hospital, Henan Provincial People's Hospital, Zhengzhou 450003, China. Electronic address: .

Abstract:  This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (https://www.elsevier.com/about/our-business/policies/article-withdrawal). This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief. Given the comments of Dr Elisabeth Bik regarding this article ‚Äú‚Ä?the Western blot bands in all 400+ papers are all very regularly spaced and have a smooth appearance in the shape of a dumbbell or tadpole, without any of the usual smudges or stains. All bands are placed on similar looking backgrounds, suggesting they were copy/pasted from other sources, or computer generated‚Ä? the journal requested the authors to provide the raw data. However, the authors were not able to fulfil this request and therefore the Editor-in-Chief decided to retract the article. 

Retracted: Yes

PubPeer comments:
 This paper belongs to a set of over 400 papers (as per February 2020) that share very similar Western blots with tadpole-like shaped bands, the same background pattern, and striking similarities in title structures, paper layout, bar graph design, and - in a subset - flow cytometry panels. Despite these similarities, these papers are authored by researchers from different departments and institutes, with almost no overlap in authors. The list of these papers is available here: https: docs.google.com spreadsheets d 1KXqTAyl4j-jVorFPMD2XRpr76LcIKJ0CVyIvRj0exYQ edit?usp=sharing A more detailed description of this set of papers, suspected to all be generated by a common source, a paper mill , can be found here: * https: forbetterscience.com 2020 01 24 the-full-service-paper-mill-and-its-chinese-customers (January 2020) * https: scienceintegritydigest.com 2020 02 21 the-tadpole-paper-mill (February 2020) The same paper mill has been described in these papers: * Jana Christopher - Systematic fabrication of scientific images revealed - FEBS Letters (2018) - https: febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com doi full 10.1002 1873-3468.13201 * Jennifer A Byrne and Jana Christopher - Digital magic, or the dark arts of the 21st centuryu2014how can journals and peer reviewers detect manuscripts and publications from paper mills? - FEBS Letters (2020) - https: febs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com doi full 10.1002 1873-3468.13747 , 
 Retracted [28 June 2022] . ------------------------ This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief. Given the comments of Dr Elisabeth Bik regarding this article u201cu2026 the Western blot bands in all 400+ papers are all very regularly spaced and have a smooth appearance in the shape of a dumbbell or tadpole, without any of the usual smudges or stains. All bands are placed on similar looking backgrounds, suggesting they were copy pasted from other sources, or computer generatedu201d, the journal requested the authors to provide the raw data. However, the authors were not able to fulfil this request and therefore the Editor-in-Chief decided to retract the article. ,