The Journal of Experimental Medicine has issued a correction for a 2011 paper by Michael Karin, a prominent cancer researcher at the University of California, San Diego, after learning about a “clerical error” in one of the figures.
According to the notice for the article, “Constitutive intestinal NF-κB does not trigger destructive inflammation unless accompanied by MAPK activation,”
As a result of a clerical error, an incorrect data image was displayed in the control panel for the CD11c staining in the original Fig. 2 A. The corrected figure is below. This modification does not alter the interpretation of the data.
Karin’s work has been the subject of several posts on the site Science Fraud and at least one other blog. Several of his articles have come in for correction (Science Fraud has a list, including this JEM paper), and in 2009, his group retracted a 2000 Cell paper — all for image problems:
After publication of the above article, we realized that the anti-IKKα (IB) loading controls presented in Figures 3A, 3B, 3C, and 4C are duplicate presentations of the same gel lanes and do not represent the correct controls for the individual experiments. In addition, the anti-IKKα (IB) loading control in the right panel of Figure 4C is an inadvertent duplication of the DNA-PKcs (IB) data in the left panel of Figure 5F. These errors in figure preparation limit the interpretability of the related experimental data in these figures, which are an essential component of the support for the main conclusions of the paper regarding the activation of IKK and NF-κB. We are therefore retracting this paper and apologize for these errors and for any inconvenience they may have caused. Despite these errors, we stand by the reproducibility of the experimental data and the conclusion, which has been reached by numerous subsequent studies, that IKK and NF-κB are required for activation of innate immunity.
Dr. Lois was not reachable via any of the available contact information and therefore has not seen or agreed to the text of this retraction.
Karin has published nearly 400 papers, according to a link to Medline on his website. More than 25 of them have been cited at least 1,000 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
A clerical error could mean many things, so we asked Karin to elaborate but have not heard back. Meanwhile, Marlowe Tessmer, a top editor at the JEM, told us that
The authors indicated a mislabeling error occurred.
That makes some sense, and Tessmer said she had no reason to doubt that explanation, although it’s interesting to note that the journal learned about a problem with the figure not from the authors themselves but from “a third party.”
As the very detailed Science Fraud website explains, the old Fig. 2A has image duplication towards the bottom right panels. And this is one of at least 10 examples of the problem. People who indulge in image reuse on this scale do so because they haven’t actually done the experiments and while compiling their ‘different’ conditions, they forget what they have already put in (if you tell the truth you don’t have to remember anything). So in a way it WAS a clerical error – they failed to conceal the evidence of fabrication.
And what are the journals doing about it? Easy – just let the authors insert the ‘correct’ images one-by-one. Problem solved!
Image fraud is interesting because we can all see it, so it’s an excellent marker of how science polices itself. Cases like this are very revealing in that they show the journals simply moving the goalposts of what is good science, and declaring what is likely to be fraud to be simply a series of ‘clerical errors’. This is why people are afraid to speak out – because even when the evidence is in everyone’s face, journals allow authors to simply sidestep the allegations and feign ‘sloppiness’.
Given the journals allowing these corrections (EMBO, Science, PNAS) this is a pretty sad state of affairs…
amw: agreed. No one can touch these people – it is mutual agreement between star investigators and the journals. That is why journals like Science take more than year to investigate misconduct and may be more time for retraction. Who can question this?
I find the retraction of the 2000 Cell paper interesting. To say, oh, we messed up some of our figures but really, our conclusions were correct and were confirmed by subsequent studies is really a fig leaf to hide some unpleasant reality. In 2000 there simply was no doubt about IKK and NFkB being involved in inflammation. So they rushed a big paper for publication and because they were afraid of being scooped they could not bother with running all the proper controls or experiments. I have seen that kind of thinking many times and most people get away with it. Now in this case, the extend of sloppiness is so bad that they rather retract the paper so people stop looking under the carpet.
“Clerical error” MAY be true, but the authors should have reported it, not a third party. When I was student clerical help many years ago, I took a medical paper I had typed – as given – to the author and pointed to two statements and asked which was correct. He told me, then asked how in the world I knew that one was incorrect. I said it was because I recognized that they contradicted each other. He thanked me profusely for saving him from the embarrassment of having the incorrect information printed in a major journal.
Some of the labs featured this week in RW (e.g. Katiyar) lab are big producers but mostly in smaller journals. But with these guys hardly a month goes by without a paper in Science, Cell or one of the Nature journals.
One thing to remember with repeated image reuse is that this is just the chaff thrown up by the process of fabrication. Most of the time, they get the fabrication right and outsiders can’t possibly know it has happened. But eventually, because they are trying to simulate different results from a stock of other images, they make a mistake and the outside world gets a glimpse of what is going on.
It is also incredible to imagine a series of papers being submitted to Cell, Nature etc.. with clear mistakes in the images. This is not how science works – in my experience each individual figure represents the summary of months of careful work. To imagine people repeatedly ‘choosing the wrong image’ at the critical stage of manuscript preparation is fantasy.
For these reasons the sloppiness argument is flawed, and it is dismaying that the journals continually accept it. Replacing such figures is like placing a sticking plaster over a an open wound.
absolutely. People like Katiyar gets punished for doing this in small journals. however, big ones it is a “clerical” error and an erratum will erase everything and normalcy resumed to publish again in Cell, Nature and Science. Cell cycle arrest, damage repaired and the cycle continues.
Well, well… clerical error…
Of course, if you have 400 papers you can not write them all, so you have clerks who write your papers while you are doing something else…
So…the major journals use ithenticate and other plagiarism detection software prior to even sending a paper for review, right? Why aren’t journals also using content based image retrieval software? There have got to be packages available that could be tailored to look at Westerns, cytometry dot plots, and IHC images. Does anyone have experience with this approach?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_CBIR_engines
This link seems to list more papers with clerical errors from the Karin lab.
http://karinlab-et-al.blogspot.com/
Immunity. 2006 Sep;25(3):403-15.
Alternative and classical NF-kappa B signaling retain autoreactive B cells in the splenic marginal zone and result in lupus-like disease.
Enzler T1, Bonizzi G, Silverman GJ, Otero DC, Widhopf GF, Anzelon-Mills A, Rickert RC, Karin M.
Author information
1Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/16973390
Figure 2D. http://i.imgur.com/kH7UiY5.jpg
Figure 6D. http://i.imgur.com/708LDT2.jpg
EMBO J. 2004 Oct 27;23(21):4202-10. Epub 2004 Oct 7.
Activation of IKKalpha target genes depends on recognition of specific kappaB binding sites by RelB:p52 dimers.
Bonizzi G1, Bebien M, Otero DC, Johnson-Vroom KE, Cao Y, Vu D, Jegga AG, Aronow BJ, Ghosh G, Rickert RC, Karin M.
Author information
1Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0636, USA.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/15470505
Figure 2D.
http://i.imgur.com/UjJP9p8.jpg
Figure 3A.
http://i.imgur.com/xZMDh3b.jpg
Figures 3A and B.
http://i.imgur.com/7zMGfUE.jpg
Nat Med. 2005 Feb;11(2):191-8. Epub 2005 Jan 30.
IKK-beta links inflammation to obesity-induced insulin resistance.
Arkan MC1, Hevener AL, Greten FR, Maeda S, Li ZW, Long JM, Wynshaw-Boris A, Poli G, Olefsky J, Karin M.
Author information
1Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/15685170
Figure 2b.
http://i.imgur.com/SI1SC3d.jpg
Cancer Cell. 2010 Mar 16;17(3):286-97. doi: 10.1016/j.ccr.2009.12.048.
Hepatocyte IKKbeta/NF-kappaB inhibits tumor promotion and progression by preventing oxidative stress-driven STAT3 activation.
He G1, Yu GY, Temkin V, Ogata H, Kuntzen C, Sakurai T, Sieghart W, Peck-Radosavljevic M, Leffert HL, Karin M.
Author information
1Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093, USA.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/20227042
Figure 4C and 5E. http://i.imgur.com/Sx14ALn.jpg
Nature. 2002 Nov 21;420(6913):333-6.
A central role for JNK in obesity and insulin resistance.
Jiro Hirosumi1,2, Gürol Tuncman1,2, Lufen Chang3, Cem Z. Görgün1, K. Teoman Uysal1, Kazuhisa Maeda1, Michael Karin3 & Gökhan S. Hotamisligil1
1. Division of Biological Sciences and Department of Nutrition, Harvard School of Public Health, 665 Huntington Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02115, USA
2. Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Department of Pharmacology, University of California San Diego, School of Medicine, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, California 92093, USA
3. These authors contributed equally to this work
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/4966AA09CF15E616FF386E8643BE34
Figure 4a. http://i.imgur.com/paYW44Y.jpg
Dev Cell. 2003 Apr;4(4):521-33.
JNK1 is required for maintenance of neuronal microtubules and controls phosphorylation of microtubule-associated proteins.
Chang L1, Jones Y, Ellisman MH, Goldstein LS, Karin M.
Author information
1Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, La Jolla, CA 92037, USA.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/12689591
Figure 7A, B and D.
http://i.imgur.com/eRwS4pY.jpg
Mol Cell. 2004 Sep 10;15(5):713-25.
Distinct roles for JNK1 and JNK2 in regulating JNK activity and c-Jun-dependent cell proliferation.
Kanaga Sabapathy, 1, 2, , Konrad Hochedlinger1, 4, Shin Yuen Nam2, Anton Bauer1, 5, Michael Karin3, Erwin F. Wagner, 1,
1 Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Dr. Bohrgasse 7, A-1030 Vienna, Austria
2 National Cancer Centre, 11 Hospital Drive, Singapore 169610, Singapore
3 Department of Pharmacology, Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, School of Medicine, Cancer Center, University of California at San Diego, La Jolla, CA 92093 USA.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/15350216
Figure 2. http://i.imgur.com/kCmTQji.jpg
Figure 3A. http://i.imgur.com/UMVj8H6.jpg
Mol Cell. 2005 Dec 22;20(6):891-903.
p38-dependent phosphorylation of the mRNA decay-promoting factor KSRP controls the stability of select myogenic transcripts.
Paola Briata1, 7, Sonia Vanina Forcales2, Marco Ponassi1, Giorgio Corte1, 3, Ching-Yi Chen4, Michael Karin5, 8, Pier Lorenzo Puri2, 6, , , Roberto Gherzi1, 7, ,
1 Istituto Nazionale per la Ricerca sul Cancro, 16132 Genova, Italy
2 Laboratory of Gene Expression, Dulbecco Telethon Institute, San Raffaele Biomedical Science Park, Via di Castel Romano, 100, 00128, Roma, Italy
3 DOBIG, School of Medicine, University of Genova, 16132 Genova, Italy
4 Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Genetics, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama 35294
5 University of California, San Diego, La Jolla, California 92093
6 The Burnham Institute, La Jolla, California 92037
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/16364914
Figure 1E.
http://i.imgur.com/zlCCN6z.jpg
Figure 3B.
http://i.imgur.com/9414SvI.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/3qTZZrG.jpg
Figures 1E and 3B.
http://i.imgur.com/B7gCKgo.jpg
Figure 5E.
http://i.imgur.com/8jElQik.jpg
Senior author, Roberto Gherzi, at Retraction Watch.
http://retractionwatch.com/2015/11/19/mol-bio-paper-pulled-by-plos-following-investigation-into-figures/
Science. 2004 Oct 8;306(5694):271-5. Epub 2004 Sep 9.
Jun turnover is controlled through JNK-dependent phosphorylation of the E3 ligase Itch.
Gao M1, Labuda T, Xia Y, Gallagher E, Fang D, Liu YC, Karin M.
Author information
1Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Department of Pharmacology, School of Medicine, University of California, San Diego, 9500 Gilman Drive, La Jolla, CA 92093-0723, USA.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/15358865
Figure 3.
http://imgur.com/SqnB8O1
Figure 4.
http://i.imgur.com/e3p20Xo.jpg
Figure 3 and 4.
http://imgur.com/OBWWqcQ
Figure 2.
http://imgur.com/1OMNMYA
EMBO J. 2014 Nov 3;33(21):2581-96. doi: 10.15252/embj.201488351. Epub 2014 Sep 26.
The MEKK1 PHD ubiquitinates TAB1 to activate MAPKs in response to cytokines.
Charlaftis N1, Suddason T1, Wu X2, Anwar S1, Karin M2, Gallagher E3.
Author information
1Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK.
2Laboratory of Gene Regulation and Signal Transduction, Departments of Pharmacology and Pathology, University of California San Diego School of Medicine, San Diego, CA, USA.
3Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK.
Pubpeer: https://pubpeer.com/publications/54214B6917977E26E7FDC0437CC2E9#fb107848
Figure 3.
http://i.imgur.com/PHDZ4GS.jpg
As many as 40+ papers on PubPeer. https://pubpeer.com/search?q=authors%3A%22michael+karin%22