Advertisement
Browse Subject Areas
?

Click through the PLOS taxonomy to find articles in your field.

For more information about PLOS Subject Areas, click here.

  • Loading metrics

Open Access

Retraction

Retraction: HIF-1α and HIF-2α: Siblings in promoting angiogenesis of residual hepatocellular carcinoma after high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation

  • The PLOS One Editors

After this article [1] was published, concerns were raised about Figs 2-6 and 8-9.

Specifically:

  • The following panels appear to partially overlap:
    1. ◦ In Fig 2, the 3w panel and the 4w panel.
    2. ◦ In Fig 3, the 2w panel and the 3w panel.
    3. ◦ In Fig 4, the control panel and the 1w panel.
    4. ◦ In Fig 5, the 3d panel and the 3w panel.
    5. ◦ In Fig 6, the 1w panel and the 2w panel.
  • The β-actin panel of Fig 9 appears similar to the β-actin panel of Fig 8 when flipped horizontally and vertically.
  • The following panels in [1] and [2] appear to partially overlap:
    1. ◦ The control panel of Fig 6 in [1] and the control mimic – MVD panel in Figure 3 of [2].
    2. ◦ The 1d panel of Fig 6 in [1] and the sunitinib+vehicle - MVD panel in Figure 3 of [2].
    3. ◦ The 3d panel of Fig 6 in [1] and the sunitinib+ADM22-52 - MVD panel in Figure 3 of [2].

In editorial follow-up, the corresponding author (SL) provided updated versions of Figs 2-6, but stated that the original images and quantitative data underlying all figures in [1] are unavailable. The replacement panels included in the updated figures raised further concerns about the reliability of these data. As such, the above concerns remain unresolved.

In light of the above unresolved concerns, which undermine the reliability of the reported results and conclusions, the PLOS One Editors retract this article.

SL did not respond to the final editorial decision. LW, ZF, SZ, JG, CAL, and ZQ either did not respond directly or could not be reached.

References

  1. 1. Wu L, Fu Z, Zhou S, Gong J, Liu CA, Qiao Z, et al. HIF-1α and HIF-2α: siblings in promoting angiogenesis of residual hepatocellular carcinoma after high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation. PLoS One. 2014;9(2): e88913. pmid:24551189
  2. 2. Gao Y, Li J, Qiao N, Meng Q, Zhang M, Wang X, et al. Adrenomedullin blockade suppresses sunitinib-resistant renal cell carcinoma growth by targeting the ERK/MAPK pathway. Oncotarget. 2016;7(39): 63374–87. pmid:27556517

Citation: The PLOS One Editors (2025) Retraction: HIF-1α and HIF-2α: Siblings in promoting angiogenesis of residual hepatocellular carcinoma after high-intensity focused ultrasound ablation. PLoS ONE 20(4): e0322422. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322422

Published: April 8, 2025

Copyright: © 2025 The PLOS One Editors. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.