The above-cited article has been retracted by the American Diabetes Association (ADA), the publisher of Diabetes. This article was previously the subject of an expression of concern in the November 2018 issue of the journal (Diabetes 2018;67:2478–2479. DOI: 10.2337/db18-ec2018a. PMID: 30213821).
In September 2018, ADA’s Panel on Ethical Scientific Programs (ESP) contacted the University of Zurich, the lead and corresponding authors’ institution at the time the research was conducted, to request an institutional investigation of concerns related to image manipulation and duplication in the article cited above. The University’s review is ongoing.
The ESP has since coordinated an independent review of the anomalies cited in the expression of concern. On the basis of its review, the ESP has determined that the following instances of potential image duplication compromise the overall reliability of the study.
In the “Actin, 30 h” panel of Fig. 3B, lanes 4 and 6 appear to be duplicates.
In Fig. 4A, lanes 3 and 4 of “PDX-1, 96 h” panel appear to be duplicates.
In Fig. 4A, lane 2 of the “Actin, 96 h” panel and lane 5 of the “PDX-1, 96 h” panel appear to be duplicates.
Lanes 3–6 of the “Actin, 96h” strip of Fig. 3D of this article and lanes 3–6 of the “Actin 42 kDA” strip in Fig. 3B of Diabetes 55:2713–2722, with horizontal rotation and contrast and size adjustments, appear to be duplicates.
ADA, the publisher of Diabetes, has chosen to retract this publication upon the recommendation of the ESP. Information about ADA’s review policies and procedures can be found at diabetesjournals.org/content/journal-policies.
