Alfaifi M, Ali Beg MM, Alshahrani MY, et al. Circulating long non-coding RNAs NKILA, NEAT1, MALAT1, and MIAT expression and their association in type 2 diabetes mellitus. BMJ Open Diab Res Care 2021;9:e001821. doi:10.1136/ bmjdrc-2020-001821

This article has been retracted by the journal due to peer review manipulation and concerns that the ethical approval supplied by the authors is inconsistent with the research described.

On review of the submission history for the manuscript, BMJ found evidence that the peer review process was compromised. One of the peer reviewers was recommended by the authors. When this reviewer was contacted via their institutional email address, the individual confirmed they had provided no such review to the journal and that the email address associated with the reviewer account was not theirs.

The authors provided a certificate to BMJ, from their institution, which exempted the study from requiring formal ethics approval. However, the exemption letter supplied does not include a date and does not apply to the research described in this paper. The certificate exempts work on the genes CDKAL1, CDKN2A/2A, HHEX and IGF2BP2, which are not studied in this work.

During this review, other issues were also identified that affect the quality of the content.

The authors were given the opportunity to respond to these concerns, but did not provide an adequate explanation.