Retraction: Clonogenic, myogenic progenitors expressing MCAM/CD146 are incorporated as adventitial reticular cells in the microvascular compartment of human post-natal skeletal muscle

Abstract

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Following publication of this article [1], concerns were raised about undeclared re-use of data from an earlier study [2] by some of the same authors.

Specifically:

The study reported in [1] appears to overlap with work reported previously in [2] (which was published under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license), including in methodology, results and conclusions.

Related to the overlap in experimental work, some images in [1] are based on the same tissue/cell samples reported in [2]. The reuse of samples and/or images was not declared in [1].

In response to these concerns, corresponding author BS indicated that the study reported in [2] was a preliminary approach to questions around non-canonical myogenic progenitors and that the PLOS ONE article [1] addressed further pending questions, offering advances including:

A member of the Editorial Board advised that there is substantial overlap in the methodology and findings presented in these two articles [1,2], including several instances of duplicated data reported from the same experiments and samples. They noted that while there are some experimental results that are newly described in the PLOS ONE article [1], those results are insufficient to support a standalone article if the overlapping content is disregarded.

In light of the concerns about the extent of the overlapping content and the undeclared re-use of experimental data from [2], the PLOS ONE Editors retract this article because it does not satisfy the journal’s second publication criterion or PLOS’ policy on Submission and Publication of Related Studies.

Of note, three additional issues arose in regard to this article [1]:

The Fig 1A, Fig 3B skin fibroblasts panel, Fig 4C myoglobes and myofibers panels, Fig 4B lower right-hand Matrigel panel, and Fig 5D hSpectrin Laminin Dapi panel results report material similar to that published in [2] in 2016 by Sacchetti et al. under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license. Due to restrictions that apply to the original article’s license, these figures are excluded from the PLOS article’s [1] CC BY 4.0 license. At the time of retraction, the article [1] was republished to note this exclusion in the Figure legends and the article’s copyright statement.

TP and MC agreed with the retraction. AF and BS either did not reply directly or could not be reached.