Abstract

This article has been retracted: please see Elsevier Policy on Article Withdrawal (http://www.elsevier.com/locate/withdrawalpolicy). This article has been retracted at the request of the Editor-in-Chief and Academic Committee of Jiangsu Normal University (ACJSNU). ACJSNU informed the journal that they were aware of PubPeer comments of data fabrication and manipulation in Fig 4A, Fig 5A, Fig 7A + C as detailed here [https://pubpeer.com/publications/D732FA0F313382B58DD725C25A8AB9#3]. ACJSNU launched an investigation and invited two independent referees to review the issues raised on PubPeer and they agreed the paper displays signs of scientific fraud. An investigation made by Tangshan People's Hospital, concluded there are no researchers called Jun-Chang Wu and Gao-Zhou Tang in the hospital. ACJSNU requested that the corresponding authors of the paper provide the original experimental records and data for verification. However, the authors have been unable to address the above concerns, and have stated that the data were obtained from a third party which was not disclosed in the article. The National Natural Science Foundation of China has also investigated this paper and others by the corresponding authors [https://www.nsfc.gov.cn/publish/portal0/tab442/info85495.htm]. The Editor-in-Chief therefore no longer has confidence in the data presented and the conclusions of the article.