[Retracted] Piezo1 protein induces the apoptosis of human osteoarthritis‑derived chondrocytes by activating caspase‑12, the signaling marker of ER stress.

The authors have requested that their research article entitled 'Piezo1 protein induces the apoptosis of human osteoarthritis‑derived chondrocytes by activating caspase‑12, the signaling marker of ER stress' published in International Journal of Molecular Medicine 40, 845‑853, 2017, be retracted from the journal. Following the publication of this article, an interested reader drew to our attention that certain of the figures, or figure parts, published in this article contained data that also appeared at around the same time in a publication featuring several of the same authors in Experimental Cell Research: Li XF, Leng P, Zhang Z and Zhang HN: 'The Piezo1 protein ion channel functions in human nucleus pulposus cell apoptosis by regulating mitochondrial dysfunction and the endoplasmic reticulum stress signal pathway'. Exp Cell Res 358: 377‑389, 2017. Though these studies were performed in osteoarthritic chondrocytes and nucleus pulposus cells, respectively, the authors realize that their submission to International Journal of Molecular Medicine was in breach of the requirement that a submitted paper should represent an (entirely) original study presenting novel work, and that none of the data therein had been previously submitted to or accepted by any other journal. Therefore, following the advice of the Editor, they are going to retract the paper from International Journal of Molecular Medicine. All the named authors agree to this retraction. They sincerely apologize for this mistake, thank the reader of their article who drew this matter to their attention, and regret any inconvenience this has caused. [the original article was published in International Journal of Molecular Medicine Med 40: 845-853, 2017; DOI: 10.3892/ijmm.2017.3075].