A 2017 paper coauthored by Nobel laureate Thomas Südhof has been retracted.
The article, “Conditional Deletion of All Neurexins Defines Diversity of Essential Synaptic Organizer Functions for Neurexins,” was published in Neuron in May 2017 and has been cited 145 times, according to Clarivate’s Web of Science.
The retraction notice, issued February 11, states:
We, the authors of this publication, have decided to retract the paper because we found that the images in Figure 1D and Figure S4B contain aberrations that cannot be explained, and the original data for these figures are missing. Raw data for the other components of the paper are available, and their reanalysis confirmed the conclusions of the paper. We would like to thank M. Schrag for bringing these image aberrations to our attention.
The article was the subject of a lengthy PubPeer thread initiated in April 2024 by Lulu Y. Chen, the paper’s lead author and, at the time, a postdoc in Südhof’s lab at Stanford University. Chen wrote that she “discovered I inadvertently duplicated a panel” in one of the paper’s figures, and she was “posting this finding preemptively.” In the months following, several sleuths, including Elisabeth Bik and Matthew Shrag, noted issues with other figures in the paper.
The Transmitter reported in August that an update on Südhof’s website stated the authors had requested a retraction of the article. (Note: Retraction Watch cofounder Ivan Oransky is the editor-in-chief of The Transmitter.) The article has been cited seven times since August.
When Neuron issued the retraction notice this week, Bik posted the text of it, adding:
Of note, the authors’ wording of “we found” and “can not be explained” seem not reflect what was discussed above on this thread. It is also remarkable that only Dr. Schrag is thanked for bringing this to the authors’ attention.
The retraction is the second for Südhof. Several corrections on his papers have also been issued recently, Science reported in May, with many other papers flagged on PubPeer. A regularly updated page on Südhof’s website details the concerns and actions taken to investigate.
He is one of 22 Nobel Prize winners who have had papers retracted.
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Great work.