Kunigal, S., Lakka, S.S., Gondi, C.S., Estes, N. and Rao J.S. (2007), RNAi-mediated downregulation of urokinase plasminogen activator receptor (uPAR) and matrix metalloprotease-9 (MMP-9) in human breast cancer cells results in decreased tumor invasion, angiogenesis and growth. Int. J. Cancer, 121 (10): 2307–16. doi: 10.1002/ijc.22962.
The above article, published online July 26, 2007 in Wiley Inter-Science (www.interscience.wiley.com), has been retracted by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief and Wiley Periodicals LLC. The retraction has been agreed due to irregularities in several figure panels in the paper:
Figure 1A: the panels for MMP-2 in two different cell lines appear similar.
Figure 1B: the two GAPDH panels in two different cell lines appear similar.
Figure 2B: the images for the pUM panels from two different cell lines are partially identical.
Figure 3A: in three cases there are partially identical images for different experimental setups (MDA-MB-231, control+pSV; MDA-MB-231, puPAR+pUM; ZR-751, puPAR+pMMP-9).
Figure 5: in the Western blot images, bands for MAPK in MDA-MB-231 cells and the GAPDH bands in ZR-751 cells appear similar (when stretched).
Considering the time period since publication, the original data are no longer available. However, as the reported concerns would make the conclusions of the article unreliable, retraction was decided upon as the best course of action. S. K. does not agree to the retraction and wishes to point out that the immunoblots and the microscopic cell images were not inappropriately manipulated, but some background noise might have been removed. S. S. L. and C. S. G. did not reply, N.E. and J.S.R. could not be reached.