Hepatology issues corrections in two papers from Pitt liver group

 A group of liver researchers from the University of Pittsburgh has earned a pair of corrections in Hepatology for image problems.

The team was led by George K. Michalopoulos, chair of the department of pathology at the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center.

One article, “Excessive hepatomegaly of mice with hepatocyte-targeted elimination of integrin linked kinase following treatment with 1,4-bis [2-(3,5-dichaloropyridyloxy)] benzene,” appeared in January 2011. According to the notice:

In the February 2011 issue of Hepatology, in the article titled “Excessive hepatomegaly of mice with hepatocyte-targeted elimination of integrin linked kinase following treatment with 1,4-bis [2-(3,5-dichaloropyridyloxy)] benzene” (volume 53, pages 587-595; doi: 10.1002/hep.24040), by Shashikiran Donthamsetty, Vishakha S. Bhave, Corrine S. Kliment, William C. Bowen, Wendy M. Mars, Aaron W. Bell, Rachel E. Stewart, Anne Orr, Chuanyue Wu and George K. Michalopoulos, the upper left photomicrograph of Fig. 4D, showing Myc expression in nonhepatectomized wild-type mice, was erroneously taken from the liver of a nonhepatectomized ILK knockout mouse. The following image is derived from wild-type mice and corrects the image published in the original article.

The second article,”Hepatocyte proliferation and hepatomegaly induced by phenobarbital and TCPOBOP is suppressed in hepatocyte-targeted glypican 3 transgenic mice,” came out in August 2011. The correction for this paper is somewhat more involved (we might call it a “mega-correction”):

In the August 2011 issue of HEPATOLOGY, in the article titled “Hepatocyte Proliferation and Hepatomegaly Induced by Phenobarbital and TCPOBOP Is Suppressed in Hepatocyte-Targeted Glypican 3 Transgenic Mice”(54:620-630), by Chih-Wen Lin, Wendy M. Mars, Shirish Paranjpe, Shashikiran Donthamsetty, Vishakha S. Bhave, Liang-I Kang, Anne Orr, William C. Bowen, Aaron W. Bell, and George K. Michalopoulos, prompted by the discovery of errors in beta actin and GAPDH bands noticed by one of the readers, a thorough reexamination of the data was undertaken. Data were discovered that had not been incorporated in the total analysis until now, and some of the bands were found to be misplaced. The necessary corrections to the errors are as follows:

Figure 3. Panels A, B, E, and F are removed. Panels C and D are replaced by corrected panels 3 A and B.
Figure 4. Corrected panels 4 A and B replace the previous panels 4 A and B.
Figure 5. Panels C and D are removed. Panels 5 A and B are replaced by the corrected panels A and B.
Figure 6. Corrected panels A and B replace previous panels A and B.

The notice provides the corrected panels, and concludes with the following:

The fundamental conclusions of the paper remain intact, as follows:
1. Glypican-3 (GPC3) transgenic mice have substantially decreased growth response to phenobarbital (PB) and TCPOBOP. This is shown by liver to body weight ratio and Ki67 nuclear labeling.
2. There is decreased expression of HGF in the GPC3 transgenic (TG) mice.
3. There is increased phospho-YAP cytoplasmic protein especially in the PB- but also in the TCPOBOP-treated mice.
4. All data in the tables remain intact.
5. All gene expression tables remain intact.
6. The Supporting Figure reflecting gene expression changes in the top 150 expressed genes also remains intact.

The papers have been cited eight and six times, respectively, according to Thomson Scientific’s Web of Knowledge.

We’ve asked UPMC if it has looked into the papers and will update this post if we learn more.