A paper published in Science two years ago has been flagged with an expression of concern while the editors give the authors a chance to correct a data issue identified by two different readers.
“Light-induced mobile factors from shoots regulate rhizobium-triggered soybean root nodulation,” was published in September 2021 and has been cited 43 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
The notice, published today, states:
The editors have been made aware that data presented in Fig. 5 assessed GmNSP1 expression rather than GmNIN expression. We are alerting readers to these concerns while the authors provide additional data to correct the manuscript.
A spokesperson for the journal told Retraction Watch two separate individuals had emailed the editorial team about an issue in the paper, with the most recent email arriving earlier this month.
The Science editors contacted the authors of the paper, who acknowledged the problem and said the error in the figure was unintentional, the spokesperson said. The authors also told Science correcting the error wouldn’t change the conclusions of the paper and offered to provide more data to address the problem.
We asked about the decision to allow the authors to submit replacement data. The spokesperson said:
Science editorial, after consulting advisers, agreed to allow the authors of the study to provide additional data to correct Figure 5. Under these circumstances, while Science waits for the data, and in order to alert our readers as to the need for amendments to the paper, we are posting an Editorial Expression of Concern. After the sought after data is provided, Science editorial will review it to confirm it represents and matches what the authors had published in 2021. At that point, the authors may need to further provide corrections to the text and figures of their 2021 study.
Neither of the study’s corresponding authors, Shiyong Sun and Xuelu Wang of the State Key Laboratory of Crop Stress Adaptation and Improvement at Henan University in Kaifeng, China, has responded to our request for comment.
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