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(Molecular Therapy 22, 440–450; February 2014)
This article has been retracted at the request of the editor-in-chief. A third party communicated concerns of image duplication to the editorial office. Concerns were also posted to a PubPeer thread: https://pubpeer.com/publications/00EF64ADD1F5065A29DFEB5962C3F7. Similarities were found between images in this article and articles in Acta Neuropathologica (Yang et al., 2012, Acta Neuropathol. 12, 491-503, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00401-012-0989-1), The American Journal of Pathology (Yang et al., 2010, Am. J. Pathol. 177, 1989-2001, https://doi.org/10.2353/ajpath.2010.091203), and the European Journal of Pharmacology (Zhang et al., 2012, Eur. J. Pharmacol. 697, 32-39, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ejphar.2012.10.008). Similarities were also found between two images within this article. Image analysis performed by the editorial office confirmed the findings of image reuse in Figures 2A, 5B, 7A, and 8A of the Molecular Therapy article. This reuse (and in part misrepresentation) of data without appropriate attribution represents a severe abuse of the scientific publishing system. The email from the editorial office declaring the retraction was undeliverable to the following authors: Yaping Yan, Tingguo Kang, and Hui Xu.