Dude, whose gene is that? Genetics paper retracted for lack of permission

Plant Biotechnology Reports is retracting a 2009 paper by a group of researchers in South Korea because the authors submitted the article “without the permission” of the owner of a gene used in the study.

The paper abstract is no longer online, though the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE) recommends that retraction notices be linked to the retracted article wherever possible. So we can’t even tell you what the paper is about, outside of its title: “T₁ transgenic tobacco plants carrying multicopy T-DNAs at the same locus exhibit various expression levels of transgenes.”

Here’s all we’ve got—the retraction notice itself:

The Editors of Plant Biotechnology Reports and the publisher hereby retract the article entitled “T₁ transgenic tobacco plants carrying multicopy T-DNAs at the same locus exhibit various expression levels of transgenes” by Min SR, Davarpanah SJ, Park YI, Jeon JH, Moon JS, Liu JR and Jeong WJ, which appeared in the Online First version of Plant Biotech Rep because the authors submitted the article without the permission of the owner of a gene that was mentioned in the article.

We’ve reached out to corresponding author Won Joong Jeong and journal editor, Jang R. Liu of Daegu Gyeongbuk Institute of Science and Technology in Korea, for more details. We’ll update if possible.

Hat tip: Rahul Shelake

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