RETRACTED ARTICLE: N(6)-methyladenosine-mediated miR-380-3p maturation and upregulation promotes cancer aggressiveness in pancreatic cancer

We, the Editors and Publisher of the journal <i>Bioengineered</i>, have retracted the following article from publication. Jiang, Z., Song, X., Wei, Y., Li, Y., Kong, D., &amp; Sun, J. (2022). N(6)-methyladenosine-mediated miR-380-3p maturation and upregulation promotes cancer aggressiveness in pancreatic cancer. <i>Bioengineered</i>, 13(6), 14460–14471. https://doi.org/10.1080/21655979.2022.2088497 Since publication, significant concerns have been raised about the integrity of the data and reported results in the article. When approached for an explanation, the authors have not responded to our queries and so these serious concerns remain unaddressed. As verifying the validity of published work is core to the integrity of the scholarly record, we are therefore retracting the article. The authors have been informed of this decision. We have been informed in our decision-making by our policy on publishing ethics and integrity and COPE guidelines. The retracted article will remain online to maintain the scholarly record and will be digitally watermarked on each page as ‘Retracted’.

N6-甲基腺嘌呤（N(6)-methyladenosine，m6A）修饰的微小RNA（microRNAs，miRNAs）与癌症进展密切相关。尽管已有研究对miR-380-3p在膀胱癌、神经母细胞瘤中调控癌症进展的作用进行了初步探索，但该分子在胰腺癌（pancreatic cancer，PC）等其他癌种中的功能尚未被阐明。为此，本研究旨在探讨miR-380-3p对胰腺癌进展的调控作用。本研究通过实时定量聚合酶链反应（Real-Time qPCR）证实，相较于正常对照组织与细胞，miR-380-3p在临床胰腺癌组织及胰腺癌细胞中显著上调。值得注意的是，miR-380-3p存在丰富的m6A修饰，通过敲除甲基转移酶样3（METTL3）与甲基转移酶样14（METTL14）以消除m6A修饰，可协同抑制胰腺癌细胞内miR-380-3p的表达。随后，功能获得与功能缺失实验验证了：敲低miR-380-3p可在体外（in vitro）与体内（in vivo）抑制胰腺癌细胞的增殖、上皮间质转化（epithelial–mesenchymal transition，EMT）及致瘤能力，而过表达miR-380-3p则产生相反的效应。进一步的机制研究揭示，miR-380-3p可靶向结合第10号染色体缺失的磷酸酶及张力蛋白同源物（PTEN）的3'非编码区（3’ untranslated regions，3ʹUTRs），抑制其表达并促进其降解，进而激活下游Akt信号通路。此外，挽救实验证实，过表达PTEN或使用Akt通路抑制剂LY294002，均可抵消miR-380-3p过表达对胰腺癌细胞侵袭能力的促进作用。综上，本研究首次阐明了m6A修饰相关的miR-380-3p/PTEN/Akt通路在调控胰腺癌进展中的作用，为该癌症的诊断与治疗提供了全新的生物标志物。