Retraction

The University of Perugia appointed an internal Investigatory Commission to investigate the validity of claims of alleged academic misconduct with respect to several publications including Am J Physiol Gastrointest Liver Physiol 281: G654-G665, 2001. The Commission determined that Professor Stefano Fiorucci, the first and corresponding author of the above mentioned paper, while not necessarily involved in manipulating data himself, should have provided greater oversight of this and other papers submitted from his laboratory and thus is ultimately responsible for any violation of appropriate standards. Review of this article by the American Physiological Society (APS) has led to the conclusion that Figure 1B is fraudulent and that Figure 3F is an inappropriate composite of different images, which may invalidate its conclusions. In accordance with APS publication policies, the above-referenced paper is being retracted due to ethical concerns.