Retraction: RASSF8 downregulation promotes lymphangiogenesis and metastasis in esophageal squamous cell carcinoma

Lan Zhang¹, ³, ⁴, ^*, Jian-Hua Wang⁵, ^*, Rong-Xin Liang⁵,^*, Shu-Ting Huang¹,³,⁴, Jing Xu³,⁴, Lin-Jing Yuan¹,³,⁴, Long Huang¹, Yun Zhou¹,³,⁴, Xing-Juan Yu³,⁴, Shao-Yun Wu³,⁴, Rong-Zhen Luo²,⁴, Jing-Ping Yun¹,²,³, Wei-Hua Jia³,⁴, Min Zheng¹,³,⁴

¹Department of Gynecology, Guangzhou, P. R. China
¹Department of Pathology, Sun Yat-Sen University Cancer Center; Guangzhou, P. R. China
¹State Key Laboratory of Oncology in South China, Guangzhou, P. R. China
¹Collaborative Innovation Center for Cancer Medicine, Guangzhou, P. R. China
¹Cardiovascular Department, Second People’s Hospital of Guangdong Province, Guangzhou, P. R. China
¹Department of Oncology, The Second Affiliated Hospital, Nanchang University, Nanchang, P. R. China
¹These authors have contributed equally to this work

Published: May 13, 2026

This article has been retracted:Oncotarget has concluded its investigation of this paper. Our findings identified several instances of internal duplication and overlaps with an unrelated paper from a different institution.
Specifically, the following issues were identified:

- Figure 2B: The wound healing assay panels for EC109/RASSF8-RNAi#1 and RASSF8-RNAi#2 at 48 h overlap.
- Figure 3A: The tube formation assay images for EC109/vector and RASSF8-RNAi#2, and EC109/RASSF8-RNAi#1 and KYES-410/RASSF8-RNAi#1, are duplicated. Furthermore, six out of eight panels in this figure were recycled in Figure 7 of a later publication [1].
- Figure 3B: The colony formation assay panels for EC109/vector and KYES-410/NC overlap.
- Figure 5D: In the western blot for KYES-410/p-ERK, the "vector" and "RASSF8" bands are duplicates of the two "RASSF8-RNAi#1" bands.

The authors did not respond to requests for comment or provide the original data. Consequently, the editorial decision has been made to retract this paper. Oncotarget has reached out to all authors to notify them of this retraction but has received no response.

REFERENCES

1. Sun Z, Ou C, Ren W, Xie X, Li X, Li G. Downregulation of long non-coding RNA ANRIL suppresses lymphangiogenesis and lymphatic metastasis in colorectal cancer. Oncotarget. 2016; 7:47536-47555. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.5923. [PubMed].

Retraction in: Oncotarget. 2025; 16:327-328. https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.28725. [PubMed].

Oncotarget. 2015; 6:34510-34524. DOI: https://doi.org/10.18632/oncotarget.5923.