CELL BIOLOGY Retraction for “Inverted formin 2 in focal adhesions promotes dorsal stress fiber and fibrillar adhesion formation to drive extracellular matrix assembly,” by Colleen T. Skau, Sergey V. Plotnikov, Andrew D. Doyle, and Clare M. Waterman, which was first published April 27, 2015; 10.1073/pnas.1505035112 (Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 112:E2447–E2456).
The authors wish to note the following: “The US Public Health Service (PHS) has made a finding of research misconduct against Colleen T. Skau. Based on Dr. Skau’s admission, an assessment conducted by NIH, and analysis conducted by the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in its oversight review, ORI found that Dr. Skau engaged in research misconduct in research supported by National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute, NIH. The following is a list of falsified data published in the article:
Figs. 1E, 2A, 5B, and 5C were falsified by selectively including and/or omitting data points from the analyses.
Figs. 1E (Top), 2C (Middle and Right), 3A (Right), 3C (Right), 5B, 5C, and 7D (Right) were falsified by reporting more data points than were actually measured.
Figs. 2A and 3C (Right) were falsified by reporting data that did not originate from genuine experimental observations.
Fig. 2C (Left and Right), 3A (Right), 5B, and 5C were falsified by performing statistical calculations and reporting significance based on falsified data.
Fig. 2C (Left and Right) and 5B were falsified by selectively manipulating raw measurements.
Fig. 7A was falsified by reporting that error bars represented SD, when they actually represented SEM.
“The first author, Colleen T. Skau, is solely responsible for these actions. All authors apologize to the scientific community for any inconvenience this might have caused. We hereby retract this article.”