Following the publication of this paper, it was drawn to the authors' attention by an interested reader that the Transwell invasion assay images in Fig. 3A had been duplicated and re‑presented within the same Figure. Furthermore, the same data were strikingly similar, in spite of their different presentation, to data featured in Fig. 2A of an article appearing in Oncology Research [Gu J, Cui, C‑F, Yang, L, Wang L and Jiang X‑H: Emodin inhibits colon cancer cell invasion and migration by suppressing epithelial‑mesenchymal transition via the Wnt/β‑catenin pathway. Oncol Res 27: 193‑202, 2019]. Finally, some of the tumour images featured in Fig. 6A of the above paper were strikingly similar to those featured in several other publications. The Editor asked the authors for an explanation to account for the appearance of strikingly similar data in their paper independently, and they responded to request that the paper be retracted from International Journal of Oncology. All the authors agreed that the article should be retracted. The Editor apologizes to the readership for any inconvenience caused.[the original article was published in International Journal of Oncology 51: 657‑667, 2017; DOI: 10.3892/ijo.2017.4034].