Following the publication of this paper, it was drawn to the Editor's attention by a concerned reader that the fluorescence microscopy data shown in Fig. 6A and B were strikingly similar to data appearing in different form in Fig. 7 in a previously published paper [Lv Z‑D, Na D, Liu F‑N, Du Z‑M, Sun Z, Li Z, Ma X‑Y, Wang Z‑N and Xu H‑M: Induction of gastric cancer cell adhesion through transforming growth factor‑beta1‑mediated peritoneal fibrosis. J Exp Clin Cancer Res 29: 139, 2010], which featured some of the same authors, although the data were shown to portray results obtained under different experimental conditions. Furthermore, the data in Fig. 7A for the 'TGF‑β1' and the 'TGF‑β1 + siRNAcon' experiments contained an overlapping section, such that these data appeared to have been derived from the same original source, even though they were intended to show the results from differently performed experiments. Owing to the fact that the contentious data in the above article had already been published prior to its submission to International Journal of Molecular Medicine, and due to a lack of overall confidence in the presented data, the Editor has decided that this paper should be retracted from the Journal. After having been in contact with the authors, they accepted the decision to retract the paper. The Editor apologizes to the readership for any inconvenience caused. [International Journal of Molecular Medicine 29: 373‑379, 2012; DOI: 10.3892/ijmm.2011.852].
Keywords: Smad2; human peritoneal mesothelial cells; peritoneal carcinomatosis; peritoneal fibrosis; trans- forming growth factor-β1.