Retracted : Knockdown of long non‐coding RNA MALAT1 inhibits growth and motility of human hepatoma cells via modulation of miR‐195
Authors: Jinke Pang
Xie Weng
Dingli Liu
Yun Zhu
Xiaorong Feng
Yabing Guo
Journal: Journal of Cellular Biochemistry (2018)
Discipline: MOLECULAR BIOLOGY & GENETICS
Keywords: EGFR; JAK/STAT; PI3K/AKT; hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC); lncRNA MALAT1
Affiliations: Department of Infectious Diseases, Nanfang Hospital of Southern Medical University, Guangzhou, China.

Abstract:  The metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcription 1 (Malat1) is a long non-coding RNA (lncRNA), exerts oncogenic role in multiple cancers, including hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC). This study was aimed to investigate its posttranscriptional regulation in HCC cells. RT-PCR was performed to monitor the expression levels of Malat1 in normal liver and HCC cell lines. The expression of Malat1, microRNA (miR)-195, and epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) in HepG2 and MHCC97 cells was respectively or synchronously altered by transfection. Then the changes in cell viability, apoptotic cell rate, cell cycle distribution, migration, and invasion were respectively assessed. As a result, we found that Malat1 was highly expressed in HCC cell lines when compared to normal liver cells. Malat1 silence suppressed HCC cells viability, migration and invasion, induced apoptosis, and arrested more cells in G0/G1 phase. Malat1 acted as a circular endogenous RNA (ceRNA) for miR-195. Malat1 silence could not suppress HCC cell growth and motility when miR-195 was knocked down. EGFR was a direct target of miR-195. miR-195 overexpression could not suppress HCC cell growth and motility when the 3'UTR site of EGFR was overexpressed. Furthermore, Malat1 silence blocked the activation of PI3K/AKT and JAK/STAT pathways, while EGFR overexpression activated them. Our study demonstrates Malat1-miR-195-EGFR axis plays a critical role in HCC cells which provided a better understanding of Malat1 in HCC. 

Retracted: Yes

PubPeer comments:
 ![file] Plagiarising [a comment by Elisabeth Bik] : 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 [9 June 2021] . ------------------------------- The above article, published online on 19 July 2017 in Wiley Online Library , has been retracted by agreement between the the journal s Editor in Chief, Prof. Dr. Christian Behl, and Wiley Periodicals LLC. The retraction has been agreed following an investigation based on allegations raised by a third party. Several flaws and inconsistencies between results presented and experimental methods described were found, the editors consider the conclusions of this article to be invalid. The authors collaborated in the investigation initially, but were not available for a final confirmation of the retraction. ,