Xia Jiahong, an immunology researcher at Huazhong Science and Technology University in Wuhan, China, who had a paper subject to a fascinating Expression of Concern earlier this month, turns out to have had a few other entries in his retraction and correction record recently.
Here’s a retraction in the January 2014 issue of the Journal of Heart and Lung Transplantation, for “Combined treatment with chemokine receptor 5 blocker and cyclosporine induces prolonged graft survival in a mouse model of cardiac transplantation,” a paper first published in 2010:
Data has been misrepresented; CCR5 in Figure 2A and CD4 in Figure 3A are the same field with different contrast or exposure time. The scientific community takes a very strong view on this matter and apologies are offered to readers of the journal that this was not detected during the submission process.
The paper has been cited nine times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.
And here’s one from last August in Transplantation, for “Blockade of NKG2D Synergized With CTLA4-Ig in Promoting Long-Term Graft Survival in Murine Models of Cardiac Transplantation,” a paper first published in 2012 and cited six times:
At the request of the authors, the Editors and Publisher retract the article “Blockade of NKG2D Synergized With CTLA4-Ig in Promoting Long-Term Graft Survival in Murine Models of Cardiac Transplantation” by Li et al. published in Transplantation (Vol. 93, pp. 356–363, February 27, 2012). The authors notified the Editors that the information provided in Figure 1C is inaccurate and that their inadvertent mistake affected the overall conclusions of the paper.
Here’s a correction in the same journal, also from last August:
In the February 15, 2013 issue of Transplantation in the article by Wu et al, “Digoxin Attenuates Acute Cardiac Allograft Rejection by Antagonizing RORFt Activity” there is incorrect information in Figure 1B. Figure 1B was mistakenly represented by a picture taken from the DMSO group on day 5, whereas it should have shown the H&E staining for lanatoside C group on day 5. In the study, both DMSO and lanatoside C groups were controls for the digoxin group, and the pathological changes were similar. Thus, the mistake in the figure was not discovered by the authors during preparation, revision and finalization of the manuscript. The authors believe the overall results and conclusions of the study are not adversely impacted but nevertheless want to provide the correct data. The corrected Figure 1B appears below.
And here’s a September 2013 correction from the Journal of Immunology for “CCR5 blockade in combination with cyclosporine increased cardiac graft survival and generated alternatively activated macrophages in primates,” a paper first published in 2011 and cited 15 times:
The image published in the second panel in Fig. 1C (CsA day 30) was mistakenly taken from the Control day 9 group instead of the CsA day 30 group. The correct image is published below; the entire figure is shown but the only change is to the second panel (CsA day 30) in Fig. 1C. The legend is correct as published and is shown below for reference.
In addition, we would like to clarify that the upper panel (CCR5&Arg1) in Fig. 5C is from animals treated with CsA and biopsied on day 30; this panel is identical to the left panel in the top row (CsA day 30) of Fig. 4A. The lower panel (CCR5&Mrc1) in Fig. 5C is from animals treated with MVC and biopsied on day 30; this panel is identical to the middle panel in the top row (MVC day 30) of Fig. 4A.
Finally, here’s a 2009 retraction of a 2008 paper in Transplant International:
At the request of the authors and in agreement with the Editor-in-Chief and Wiley-Blackwell, the following article from Transplant International, ‘Chronic cardiac allograft rejection in mice is alleviated by inhibition of CCR5 in combination with cyclosporine A’ by Jun Li, Kailun Zhang and Jiahong Xia, published online on 27 October 2008 in Wiley InterScience (http://www.interscience.wiley.com), has been retracted. The retraction has been requested and agreed due to unintentional errors in the analysis of the data presented.
Those journals that have published Corrections – at the authors’ request – should bear in mind what the Expression of Concern in Clin Exper Immunol said:
“The editors were informed of an error within Figure 2 by the authors of the paper in June 2013. The authors apologised informing us that they had used the wrong image in the panel 2F. Further investigation of the image revealed that panel 2F is a duplicate of image 2E but at an altered magnification. The authors supplied new images for review and a possible Corrigendum, however, these were unlabelled and the editors were unable to verify that these were indeed a true replicate of the initial study. We further noticed that in Figure 2J, the CCR5 lane of the Control Ab+PBS condition appears to have been modified. When contacted about this issue the authors were unable to supply an image of the whole gel/blot due to the loss of the original data.”
In other words – whatever the authors told you, might just be the tip of the iceberg…