Author: trevorlstokes

Group retracts microRNA paper after realizing reagent was skewing results

A retraction from a high-profile group uncovered a technical limitation involving a widely used reagent.

Some quick background: the sequence hypothesis central hypothesis dogma of biology states that DNA gets transcribed to RNA that gets translated into proteins. Some RNAs, however, don’t code for proteins, but instead help to regulate gene expression. These microRNAs are tiny in size, but can regulate gene expression across animal and plant kingdoms.

In September 2011, the Molecular Cell published an entire issue with regulatory RNA as its theme. V. Narry Kim, associate professor at Seoul National University and high-profile microRNA researcher contributed a study that her group has now retracted just months later on June 29.

The problem? A reagent used to purify miRNAs favors some miRNAs and fails to isolate those rich low in guanine and cytosine — two of the four building blocks of RNA — or those with few secondary folding structures.

Another opaque notice from the JBC, for paper author says is correct and valid

The Journal of Biological Chemistry has posted another of its inscrutable and opaque retraction notices, this one for a study first published in September 2011. The retraction reads in full: Continue reading Another opaque notice from the JBC, for paper author says is correct and valid

JPET corrects Janssen antidepressant paper after neuroscience blogger notes errors

Are drug company R&D departments reading blogs?

In a recent paper, “Translational evaluation of JNJ-18038683, a 5-HT7 receptor antagonist, on REM sleep and in major depressive disorder,” researchers with New Jersey-based Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc. tested whether a potential drug code-named JNJ-18038683 that binds to a receptor linked to depression could actually help patients.

Turns out, the drug was a flop, but Continue reading JPET corrects Janssen antidepressant paper after neuroscience blogger notes errors

Biologists delete paper from literature after realizing they’d deleted too many genes

Researchers deleted more genes than they bargained for in a Drosophila strain, a mistake that resulted in a retraction of a paper from 2007.

Ron Wides, a biologist specializing in pattern development at Bar-Ilan University, Israel, and colleagues have retracted a paper published in Mechanisms of Development after his lab found that their technique to delete the Ten-a gene ended up deleting other nearby genes, too.

It was deletions of other genes, and not Ten-a, that killed the fruit flies, Wides concluded. His group had also concluded, erroneously, that Ten-a is what’s known as a “pair-rule” gene. Fruit fly embryos develop in stacked segments, like tubes of Pringles; pair-rule genes guide the development of alternating segments. Those other loci, and not Ten-a, caused lethality and caused the flies to develop improperly early,  Wides concluded.

The retraction reads in full: Continue reading Biologists delete paper from literature after realizing they’d deleted too many genes

Korean stem cell investigation expands to another researcher, and more papers

Last month, we brought you the story of Soo-Kyung Kang, a Seoul National University stem cell researcher who has now retracted four papers amidst questions about image manipulation in a total of 14 studies. That story has drawn a great deal of attention in Korea, with comparisons to the Woo-Suk Hwang scandal, and has even led to a profile of Retraction Watch in the Seoul Daily, one of Korea’s largest newspapers.

We’ve now learned that the investigation has grown to 25 papers after an anonymous whistleblower warned about possible data fabrications in another paper by Kang, an associate professor of veterinary biotechnology, and Kyung-Sun Kang, director of the Adult Stem Cell Research Center in the same department (but no relation). And Soo-Kyung Kang was investigated in 2010, according to the Korea Herald.

The researchers’ labs are also under lockdown Continue reading Korean stem cell investigation expands to another researcher, and more papers

Not for the faint of heart: Cardiologists retract syncope paper after realizing data columns weren’t aligned right

Improperly aligned columns have cost researchers at the Mayo Clinic a paper in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

The paper originally concluded that fainting spells (syncope) give patients with high blood pressure in their lung arteries poor prognoses, an observation that turned out to be incorrect.

The problem? The group merged two electronic databases, but did not align columns properly, a problem found only after first author Rachel Le revisited the dataset looking to cull more data.

The retraction notice published on May 22 (the one on ScienceDirect is free to air, while the one on the JACC site is behind a paywall): Continue reading Not for the faint of heart: Cardiologists retract syncope paper after realizing data columns weren’t aligned right

Whistleblower forces retractions of four stem cell papers amid questions about more than a dozen studies

In a case that is a good reminder of why journal editors shouldn’t ignore anonymous tips, a Seoul National University stem cell researcher has been forced to retract four papers, and withdraw another under peer review, in Antioxidants & Redox Signaling following a whistleblower’s exhaustive analysis.

Two retractions by Soo Kyung Kang, a professor of veterinary biotechnology at Seoul National University, appeared on May 9 after an anonymous whistleblower sent a 70-slide PowerPoint presentation to the editors of ten journals that contained evidence of suspicious floating error bars, errors larger than actual measurements, pasted-together lanes in PCR gels and RNA and CHIP blots and several cases where the same control blot data is shown across different experiments and in different papers. In all, the whistleblower raises questions about 14 papers in the ten journals.

Here is the May 9 notice for “Nuclear Ago2/HSP60 contributes to broad spectrum of hATSCs function via Oct4 regulation”: Continue reading Whistleblower forces retractions of four stem cell papers amid questions about more than a dozen studies