Retraction Note: Genistein inhibits stemness of SKOV3 cells induced by macrophages co-cultured with ovarian cancer stem-like cells through IL-8/STAT3 axis

Retraction Note: J Exp Clin Cancer Res 38, 19 (2019)

https://doi.org/10.1186/s13046-018-1010-1

The Editor in Chief has retracted this article. Although Fig. 9 was corrected in May 2019 [1] additional concerns have been raised regarding the following issues:

• Figure 2D: the Oct4 blot looks similar to blot described as CD133 in Fig. 7D of [2], which was consideration around the same time and shares two authors with this article ;

• Figure 4C: one of the actin controls looks very similar to the blot previously published [3] in Fig. 4B as a GAPDH control by different authors;

• Figure 7B, the actin control appears similar to the Tubulin one in Fig. 4B in a previously-published paper by different authors [4];

• Figure 8C, the upper actin control seems similar to the a-tubulin blot in Fig. 4B of a previously-published paper [5] by different authors.

• Figure 8C, the lower actin control seems similar to the A549 actin control in Fig. 3A of a previously-published paper [6] by different authors.

Additionally, the tumour sizes in the corrected Fig. 9 do not appear to match the volume bar chart, and the additional tumours in FigS5A appear too large to meet ethical standards around animal welfare.

The authors sent raw photos but were unable to provide the original Western blot images and the ethics approval. The Editor in Chief, therefore, has lost confidence in the integrity of the findings of this article. All authors agree with this retraction.