The article by Sheu et al. ⁽Reference Ming-Jyh, Hsu-Chen and Yi-Chung¹⁾ has been retracted at the request of the authors. The cell lines were named as being human aortic smooth muscle cells (HASMCs). However, the authors have contacted us to state that these cells were in fact A10 cells from embryonic rats. Because of the fundamental nature of this error, the findings cannot be interpreted in the manner stated in the original article, and therefore this paper has been retracted. The authors apologise for this error.