MEDICAL SCIENCESRetraction for “Protein tyrosine phosphatase receptor-type O (PTPRO) exhibits characteristics of a candidate tumor suppressor in human lung cancer,” by Tasneem Motiwala, Huban Kutay, Kalpana Ghoshal, Shoumei Bai, Hiroyuki Seimiya, Takashi Tsuruo, Saul Suster, Carl Morrison, and Samson T. Jacob, which was first published September 8, 2004; 10.1073/pnas.0405451101 (Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.101,13844–13849).
The authors1 note the following:
“For 18 years, our study was considered to be the first to demonstrate methylation-mediated suppression of PTPRO in human tumors and its tumor suppressor potential. However, due to recent events we believe that the responsible course of action is to retract the paper. Following an investigation, The Ohio State University identified evidence of duplicated data in Figs. 2 and 5A. Their findings include:
‘In Figure 2, the reuse of the same data in the 18S rRNA blot in lanes 1 and 2 and in lanes 7 and 8, and also in lanes 3 and 4, (with a horizontal mirror image). Figure 2 also includes the false labeling of normal (N) and tumor (T) matched pairs #3 and #4 when compared to the original RT-PCR research record.
In Figure 5A, the reuse of the same data for serum starved images for both A549/vector and A549/PTPRO.’
Although we have the raw data to demonstrate the accuracy of Fig. 2 and submit a correction, we do not have access to the raw data for Fig. 5A. We stand by the reproducibility of the experimental data and the conclusions of the paper because the microscopic image in Fig. 5Awas only a representative field of the several fields that were counted to provide the quantitative data in Fig. 5B, and we believe that the conclusions drawn from this figure have been validated by the thymidine block experiment (Figs. 5A,Bottom and 5 B) and colony formation in soft agar (Fig. 4 C).”
1Takashi Tsuruo died on December 16, 2008.