Retraction Note: Cell Biochemistry and Biophysics (2015) 71:449–455

https://doi.org/10.1007/s12013-014-0222-z

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article at the Corresponding Author’s request. After publication, concerns were raised regarding image overlap with the authors’ earlier article [1], as well as within this article. Specifically:

  • Figure 1h appears to overlap with Fig. 1a in [1];

  • Figure 1j appears to overlap with Fig. 1c in [1];

  • Figure 2e appears to overlap with Fig. 2c in [1] with rotation and stretching;

  • Figure 3f, g, h, i appears highly similar to Fig. 3a, c and d in [1];

  • Figure 3c, f appears to overlap.

Further checks by the publisher have found that Tables 1 and 2 contain unlikely mean values. In addition, the authors have not provided the ethics approval number and consent statement in the article, and the patients are not well described. A patent application is also mentioned in the Introduction, but not stated in the Declarations as a potential competing interest.

The Corresponding Author has stated that ethics approval was obtained, but the number was not included in the article by mistake. The Corresponding Author has also said that the images listed above were used incorrectly.

The Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the presented data.

All authors agree to this retraction.