Following the publication of this paper, it was drawn to the Editor's attention by a concerned reader that the P‑smad2 western blotting data shown in Fig. 7 were strikingly similar to data appearing in different form (namely, the bands appeared in the reverse orientation) in Fig. 4A in another article [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 was written by mostly different authors at different research institutes (the author Zheng‑Hai Qu did appear as an author on both papers). 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: 564‑568, 2012; DOI: 10.3892/ijmm.2011.868].
Keywords: airway remodeling; asthma; astragalus plant; trans- forming growth factor-β1/Smad signaling pathway.