Following the publication of this article, an interested reader drew to the Editor's attention that certain GAPDH control bands were strikingly similar, comparing between two different figures in the paper. Two GAPDH bands in Fig. 1D appeared to be duplicates of two GAPDH bands featured in Fig. 3B, although different conditions were represented by these figures. Furthermore, the protein bands featured in the two lanes in the left p62 panel in Fig. 1D, when flipped horizontally, looked remarkably similar to the Cyclin B lanes featured in the right-hand gel of Fig. 3B. Finally, the same protein bands were also strikingly similar to bands featured in Fig. 4B, albeit in a different experimental context. The Editor of Molecular Medicine Reports has investigated this matter, and we were able to confirm that the two sets of data bands featured in this trio of figures were indeed the same ones, beyond all reasonable doubt. Consequently, the Editor has decided that this article should be retracted from the publication on the basis of an overall lack of confidence in the presented data. The Editor apologizes to the readership of the Journal for any inconvenience caused. [the original article was published in Molecular Medicine Reports 11: 1214-1220, 2015; DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2014.2853].