BCAR4 increase cisplatin resistance and predicted poor survival in gastric cancer patients
Authors: Q Chunyan
Q He
Y Zhou
Y Ma
Y Ga
X Wang
L Wang
Journal: European review for medical and pharmacological sciences (2017)
Discipline: PHARMACOLOGY & TOXICOLOGY
Keywords: Gastric cancer; chemotherapeutic drugs; long non-coding RNA (lncRNA); drug resistance; potential targets
Affiliations: Department of Pharmacy, People's Hospital of Yuxi City, Yuxi, Yunnan Province, China. .

Abstract:  Objective: Gastric cancer is a common malignancy with increasing worldwide incidence, and chemotherapeutic drugs for gastric cancer are not effective. Long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) has been proved to be important in different cancer progression. In this research, we investigated whether lncRNAs have relations with drug resistance in gastric cancer to find new potential targets for therapy, which can increase the survival time of the drug-resistant gastric patient. Patients and methods: qRT-PCR was used to detect the expression of BCAR4 in 113 cases of gastric cancer tissue and adjacent tissue, and the clinical significance was also analyzed. MTT assays and Western blot were performed to cytologically determine the relationship between BCAR4 expression and cisplatin resistance, as well as to investigate the potential molecular mechanism involved. Results: Compared with the adjacent tissues, we found that BCAR4 was highly expressed in gastric cancer tissues. We also found that the expression of BCAR4 was significantly related to the size of the tumor, clinical classification and the survival time. In cytological experiments, we found the expression of BCAR4 was enhanced in cisplatin-resistant cell strains (SGC7901/DDP). What's more, overexpression of BCAR4 in SGC7901 cells increased resistance to cisplatin while reduced BCAR4 expression increased the sensitivity of SGC7901/DDP cells to cisplatin. Western blot experiments indicated that elevated expression of BCAR4 upregulated tumor stem cell-related biomarkers via regulating Wnt signaling pathway. Conclusions: We showed that BCAR4 was closely related with the cisplatin-resistant gastric cancer. It might be a promising target for treating gastric cancer and improving the efficiency of chemotherapeutic drugs. 

Retracted: Yes

PubPeer comments:
 From the Methods:  The data were collected from 113 patients with gastric cancer in the hospital from January 2015 to June 2016 (Yunan Province, China).  This paper was published in September 2017, barely two years after recruitment of the first patients. Yet, the patients were followed for up to 150 months (more than 10 years). It is quite remarkable. Could the authors please clarify how they were able to do that? ![file] , 
 Figure 4 is also of concern. The lanes shown in these panels are separated with sharp vertical transitions, and the bands and background show a remarkable variation between the lanes presented as being run on the same gel membrane. Some samples run as a single band, while other samples in the same panel show multiple bands. The data presentation is what I like to call the  Ransom Note style, and it is very suggestive of samples derived from different membranes. This makes it hard to know if bands are of the same size, exposure, or even protein. Could the authors please provide the original blots to take away my concern? ![file] , 
 #1 The paper cannot be problematic, for it has been cited 33 times. , 
 There are some remarkable similarities between figures in this paper and those in another paper, published in the same journal but by different authors, i.e. XY Du et al., ERMPS (2017), pubmed: 28429358, https: pubpeer.com publications E5A3F7619341FD26B63751FD647CA8 * Top: the relative expression of SLPI in 132 patients with gastric cancer recruited at the Third Affiliated Hospital of Jinzhou Medical University, Jinzhou - Figure 1 from XY Du * Bottom: the relative expression of BCR4 among 113 patients with gastric cancer recruited at the Peopleu2019s Hospital of Yuxi City, Yuxi, Yunnan Province - Figure 1 from L Wang (this paper) ![file] , 
 Both papers also appear to use the same  Ransom Note style of Western blot presentation. Here is Figure 4 from the XY Du paper: ![file] , 
 Retracted [April 2021] . The article u201cBCAR4 increase cisplatin resistance and predicted poor survival in gastric cancer patients, by L. Wang, Q. Chunyan, Y. Zhou, Q. He, Y. Ma, Y. Ga, X. Wang, published in Eur Rev Med Pharmacol Sci 2017; 21 (18): 4064-4070u2013PMID: 29028095u201d has been withdrawn from the authors due to incorrect data in the conclusions. The authors are performing further experiments and they found some novelties. Therefore, they hope to re-write and conceive the paper to better clarify their findings. The Publisher apologizes for any inconvenience this may cause. ,