Retracted Article: PVT1 depletion protects cartilage ATDC5 cells against LPS-induced inflammatory injury by regulating the miR-24/ADAMTS5 axis
Authors: Wenjun Li
Xing Wu
Gejun Liu
Journal: RSC Advances (2018)
Discipline: CHEMISTRY
Keywords: Osteoarthritis; Long noncoding RNAs; PVT1; miR-24; Inflammatory injury
Affiliations: Department of Orthopedics, Shanghai Tenth People's Hospital of Tongji University, Shanghai City, China

Abstract:  Background: Osteoarthritis is a common chronic arthritis among adults and cartilage dysfunction is largely responsible for osteoarthritis development. Long noncoding RNAs (lncRNAs) have been reported to be related to osteoarthritis progression. However, the mechanism that underlies the effect of lncRNA plasmacytoma variant translocation 1 (PVT1) on inflammatory injury in cartilage ATDC5 cells remains elusive. Methods: The quantity of PVT1 and microRNA-24 (miR-24) was detected in human cartilage ATDC5 cells after transfection of si-PVT1, si-con, PVT1 or pcDNA and lipopolysaccharide (LPS) treatment for 12 h. Inflammatory injury was investigated using cell viability, apoptosis and secretion of inflammatory cytokines. The interaction of miR-24 with PVT1 or a disintegrin-like metalloproteinase with thrombospondin motifs 5 (ADAMTS5) was probed by bioinformatics, luciferase activity, RNA pull down and Ago1 RNA immunoprecipitation (RIP) assays. The effect of PVT1 and miR-24 on ADAMTS5 expression was evaluated in ATDC5 cells by western blotting (WB). Results: Treatment of LPS induced elevated PVT1 and reduced miR-24 expression in ATDC5 cells. Moreover, LPS inhibited cell viability, increased apoptosis and inflammatory cytokine production. However, PVT1 depletion attenuated LPS-induced inflammatory injury in ATDC5 cells. In addition, miR-24 directly bound to PVT1 and its deficiency reversed the effect of PVT1 deletion in LPS-treated ATDC5 cells. Furthermore, ADAMTS5 was a target of miR-24 and aberrant expression of ADAMTS5 was regulated by PVT1 and miR-24. Conclusion: PVT1 abrogation protected against LPS-induced inflammatory injury in ATDC5 cells by coordinating with the miR-24/ADAMTS5 axis, opening up a novel avenue for osteoarthritis therapeutics. 

Retracted: Yes

PubPeer comments:
 Retracted, [19 January 2021] , as one of about 70 papers recognised as the products of a papermill or papermills. Perhaps a post-mortem will be helpful for recognising the work of the same papermill(s) elsewhere. ------------------------------------------------------- The Royal Society of Chemistry hereby wholly retracts this *RSC Advances* article due to concerns with the reliability of the data. The images in the article were screened by an image integrity expert. All of the western blot bands are over-contrasted, have almost no visible background and may not be genuine. Furthermore, the western blots and many other features of the article were found to be unexpectedly similar to western blots and features in a number of other papers with no overlapping authors. The authors were asked to provide the raw data for this article, but did not respond. Given the significance of the concerns about the validity of the data, and the lack of raw data, the findings presented in this paper are not reliable. The authors were informed but have not responded to any correspondence regarding the retraction. Signed: Laura Fisher, Executive Editor, *RSC Advances* ---------------------------------- I suggest that the putative flow-cytometry plots of Figs 1C and 2C may also be usefully diagnostic . *[right]* Fig 1C. *[left]* Fig 5C from [Zhu et al (2018)] , retracted in the same tranche. ![] These appear to have been drawn by drawing the horizontal and vertical axes within each panel, then hand-stippling dots within each quadrant, producing dot distributions that **avoid the axes**. These are not natural distributions. Several other retracted papers from the tranche contain similarly artificial images, and presumably came from the same papermill. ,