Following the publication of the above article, the authors contacted the Editorial Office to explain that Fig. 1A and some of the images in Fig. 1B in the paper had already been published in Fig. 1 in another article by the same authors, and they had forgotten to cite the former publication. The paper in which these data appeared was as follows: Li X, Yang Q, Bai J, Xuan Y and Wang Y: Identification of appropriate reference genes for human mesenchymal stem cell analysis by quantitative real‑time PCR. Biotechnol Lett 37: 67‑73, 2015. Fig. 1 of the above paper is reprinted opposite, now with the original source of the figure acknowledged in the form of a reference citation at the end of the Figure caption. The authors apologize to the publishers of Biotechnology Letters for having failed to include a proper acknowledgement for use of the figure in the above publication. [the original article was published in Molecular Medicine Reports 12: 7721-7727, 2015; DOI: 10.3892/mmr.2015.4396].