This article (published in volume 54, issue 1, pages 25–37) has been retracted at the request of the University of Oklahoma Health Sciences Center (OUHSC), with the knowledge and consent of the authors.
The request for this retraction was received on 7 December 2020.
The retraction follows the conclusion of an OUHSC investigation that ‘determined that the first author, Dr Jun Zhou, carried out knowing and intentional falsification of multiple Western blot figures’ and that ‘significant falsification of data in multiple figures invalidate the scientific findings and conclusions of this article’.
The editors of the Journal of Molecular Endocrinology were first made aware of concerns about the article in June 2019. After correspondence with the authors failed to resolve the concern, the editors asked OUHSC to investigate in July 2019. At that time, OUHSC initiated a confidential investigation that concluded in November 2020 resulting in this retraction request.
This retraction notice was published 25 January 2021.
