A group of cancer genetics researchers in Italy and the U.S. has retracted three papers in the Journal of Biological Chemistry (JBC) after it became aware they had duplicated some bands in their figures.
Here are the three papers:
- Regulation of β1C and β1A integrin expression in prostate carcinoma cells (published in 2004 and cited 32 times, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge)
- Up-regulation of Skp2 after prostate cancer cell adhesion to basement membranes results in BRCA2 degradation and cell proliferation (published in 2006 and cited 22 times)
- Down-regulation of BRCA2 expression by collagen type I promotes prostate cancer cell proliferation (published in 2005 and cited 16 times)
All three notices say the same thing:
This article has been withdrawn by the authors.
We asked the JBC — whom we’ve criticized for such opaque notices before — for more information, and they said that their policy is “to maintain confidentiality in these matters.” The first author of the studies, Loredana Moro, tells us:
I was contacted by the Journal about presence of duplicated bands in some of the figures. Whilst original gels or gels from parallel experiments were provided to the Journal to confirm the veracity of published results, we agreed to comply with ASBMB publication guidelines and withdraw the papers entirely due to inappropriate presentation of data.
We don’t know how the journal first became aware of the potential duplications, but we do know that pseudonymous whistleblower Clare Francis contacted them about problems in all three articles in December 2012.
The Pubpeer entries give some idea of the problematic bands in the papers.
https://pubpeer.com/publications/14585844
https://pubpeer.com/publications/16754685
https://pubpeer.com/publications/15805113
JBC said that their policy is “to maintain confidentiality in these matters.”
Absurd. The authors waived any right to confidentiality when they published their work! If publishing something doesn’t make it public, what does?
I hope someone has checked the other papers of this group (the first author seems to be quite prolific according to pubmed). It just seems unlikely that one would only manipulate images in articles submitted to one selected journal.
who cares? once you made tenure, retractions may be annoying, but certainly not career-threatening. Look at Herr Feuer: http://retractionwatch.com/2014/06/18/journal-retracts-stem-cell-study-despite-objections-of-most-authors/
Congratulations, Signora Mori!
Authors shared with the 3 retractions also have these Pubpeer entries:-
https://pubpeer.com/publications/19079138
https://pubpeer.com/publications/11073831
https://pubpeer.com/publications/24086451
Confidentiality?! One solution: boycott Journal of Biological Chemistry for this editorial policy and attitudes. These journals think that they are demi-gods and have no accountability towards the scientific community are downright irritating. These results are fundamentally the public’s results. There is nothing to do with privacy issues. Scientists should start to wake up and see that the only difference between an IF = 4.6 journal and a non-IF journal is the IF. It is time to hold journals and publishers accountable. No more lame excuses for lack of explanations. Time to call out Martha J. Fedor, the Editor-in-Chief, for not defending transparency in science publishing.
The confidentiality here just means that the journal tries to avoid bad publicity.
The penultimate author of J Biol Chem. 2014 Jun 20;289(25):17422 (the first of the retracted papers in the post) has these Pubpeer entries:-
https://pubpeer.com/publications/14585844
https://pubpeer.com/publications/11073831
https://pubpeer.com/publications/10888665
https://pubpeer.com/publications/10623664
https://pubpeer.com/publications/8780381
https://pubpeer.com/publications/7822297
https://pubpeer.com/publications/8995280
https://pubpeer.com/publications/17072337
https://pubpeer.com/publications/16061650
https://pubpeer.com/publications/14523021
https://pubpeer.com/publications/10835423
https://pubpeer.com/publications/10197643
This is simply awful. Most of these look like blatant, obvious cases of band duplication or inappropriate image manipulation.
http://retractionwatch.com/what-people-are-saying-about-retraction-watch/#comment-362
” in science there is at least a willingness to clear up the mess sometimes”.
JBC is trying to clear up the mess.
These papers are old and most of the comments are about splicing when maybe image preparation guidelines were not that well defined. I did not see any duplication but then again I just scanned the images quickly with naked eyes.
Int J Oncol. 2007 Jan;30(1):217-24.
Constitutive activation of MAPK/ERK inhibits prostate cancer cell proliferation through upregulation of BRCA2.
Moro L1, Arbini AA, Marra E, Greco M.
Author information
1
Institute of Biomembranes and Bioenergetics, National Research Council (C.N.R.), 70126 Bari, Italy.
2017 correction for figures 3A, 3B and 5B.
https://www.spandidos-publications.com/10.3892/ijo.2016.3487
Spandidos seem to have a more relaxed attitude about replacing flipped blots with more convincing ones than JBC (where “we agreed to comply with ASBMB publication guidelines and withdraw the papers entirely due to inappropriate presentation of data”).