Antitumor activity of gambogic acid on NCI-H1993 xenografts via MET signaling pathway downregulation
Authors: Huiwei Yang
Donglei Li
Weijun Wang
Shaolin Ma
Xuyu Zhang
Yanli Wang
Dongjie Li
Runpu Li
Journal: Oncology Letters (2015)
Discipline: CLINICAL MEDICINE
Keywords: MET; NCI-H1993; gambogic acid; non-small cell lung cancer; receptor tyrosine kinase.
Affiliations: Oncology Department, Baoding Second Central Hospital of Oncology, Zhuozhou, Hebei 072750, P.R. China.

Abstract:  The present study aimed to investigate the anti-tumor mechanisms of gambogic acid (GA) on NCI-H1993 xenografts in vivo. Non-small cell lung carcinoma NCI-H1993 cells, which harbor a MET gene amplification, were subcutaneously injected into athymic nude mice. The mice were randomly assigned to treatment with 10, 20 or 30 mg/kg GA for 3 weeks. At the end of the efficacy study, all the mice were sacrificed and the tumor tissues were subjected to western blot analysis and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining. GA inhibited NCI-H1993 xenograft tumor growth in a dose-dependent manner. Western blot analysis demonstrated that expression of phosphorylated (p)-MET and its downstream signaling molecules p-AKT and p-ERK1/2 were significantly inhibited by GA. IHC analysis of Ki-67 expression demonstrated that GA treatment resulted in dose-dependent inhibition of tumor cell proliferation. GA exerted antitumor effects on NCI-H1993 xenografts in vivo by direct regulation of the MET signaling pathway. Theses antitumor effects were primarily a result of its anti-proliferation function. 

Retracted: No

PubPeer comments:
 This paper was found during a systematic search of papers in this journal with possible duplicated images. Fifteen papers in this journal (n=98 examined) were found to contain inappropriately duplicated images. These papers have all been reported to the journal publisher in 2017. The editors promised to  investigate promptly but no action has been taken as of today. Figure 3A. Boxes of the same color highlight areas that are unexpectedly similar between different panels. ![file] , 
 Corrigendum: [20 January 2021] . ----------------------------------------------------------- Subsequently to the publication of the above paper, an interested reader drew to the authorsu2019 attention that the panels shown in Fig. 3A showed some unexpected similarities when comparing the different panels. The authors have reu2011examined their data and realized that Fig. 3A was assembled incorrectly as certain of the data panels had been mislabelled; however, the authors were able to reassemble this Figure based on the results they obtained from one of their repeated experiments, and the revised version of Fig. 3 is shown below. The authors regret the errors that were made during the preparation of the Figure, although they were able to confirm that these errors did not seriously affect the conclusions reported in the paper. The authors are grateful to the editor of Oncology Letters for allowing them the opportunity to publish a Corrigendum, and all the authors agree to this Corrigendum. Furthermore, they apologize to the readership for any inconvenience caused. , 
 As pointed out by a Twitter user, there appears to be a still-unaddressed additional problem in Figure 2. * Green boxes: The right two lanes in the p-ERK1 2 panel look more similar than expected. ![file] , 
 Deleted for duplicate content. ,