IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/scient/v110y2017i3d10.1007_s11192-016-2209-6.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Striking similarities between publications from China describing single gene knockdown experiments in human cancer cell lines

Author

Listed:
  • Jennifer A. Byrne

    (The Children’s Hospital at Westmead
    The University of Sydney Discipline of Child and Adolescent Health, The Children’s Hospital at Westmead)

  • Cyril Labbé

    (Domaine Universitaire de Saint-Martin-d’Hères)

Abstract

Comparing 5 publications from China that described knockdowns of the human TPD52L2 gene in human cancer cell lines identified unexpected similarities between these publications, flaws in experimental design, and mis-matches between some described experiments and the reported results. Following communications with journal editors, two of these TPD52L2 publications have been retracted. One retraction notice stated that while the authors claimed that the data were original, the experiments had been out-sourced to a biotechnology company. Using search engine queries, automatic text-analysis, different similarity measures, and further visual inspection, we identified 48 examples of highly similar papers describing single gene knockdowns in 1–2 human cancer cell lines that were all published by investigators from China. The incorrect use of a particular TPD52L2 shRNA sequence as a negative or non-targeting control was identified in 30/48 (63%) of these publications, using a combination of Google Scholar searches and visual inspection. Overall, these results suggest that some publications describing the effects of single gene knockdowns in human cancer cell lines may include the results of experiments that were not performed by the authors. This has serious implications for the validity of such results, and for their application in future research.

Suggested Citation

  • Jennifer A. Byrne & Cyril Labbé, 2017. "Striking similarities between publications from China describing single gene knockdown experiments in human cancer cell lines," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 110(3), pages 1471-1493, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:110:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-016-2209-6
    DOI: 10.1007/s11192-016-2209-6
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11192-016-2209-6
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s11192-016-2209-6?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Wang, Xianwen & Xu, Shenmeng & Peng, Lian & Wang, Zhi & Wang, Chuanli & Zhang, Chunbo & Wang, Xianbing, 2012. "Exploring scientists’ working timetable: Do scientists often work overtime?," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 6(4), pages 655-660.
    2. Hendrik P. van Dalen & Kène Henkens, 2012. "Intended and unintended consequences of a publish‐or‐perish culture: A worldwide survey," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1282-1293, July.
    3. Hendrik P. van Dalen & Kène Henkens, 2012. "Intended and unintended consequences of a publish‐or‐perish culture: A worldwide survey," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 63(7), pages 1282-1293, July.
    4. Paul Ginsparg, 2014. "ArXiv screens spot fake papers," Nature, Nature, vol. 508(7494), pages 44-44, April.
    5. Mei Tian & Yan Su & Xin Ru, 2016. "Perish or Publish in China: Pressures on Young Chinese Scholars to Publish in Internationally Indexed Journals," Publications, MDPI, vol. 4(2), pages 1-16, April.
    6. Marco Pautasso, 2012. "Publication Growth in Biological Sub-Fields: Patterns, Predictability and Sustainability," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 4(12), pages 1-14, November.
    7. Carolin Michels & Ulrich Schmoch, 2012. "The growth of science and database coverage," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 93(3), pages 831-846, December.
    8. Diego Raphael Amancio, 2015. "Comparing the topological properties of real and artificially generated scientific manuscripts," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 105(3), pages 1763-1779, December.
    9. Daniele Fanelli, 2009. "How Many Scientists Fabricate and Falsify Research? A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Survey Data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 4(5), pages 1-11, May.
    10. Butler, Linda, 2003. "Explaining Australia's increased share of ISI publications--the effects of a funding formula based on publication counts," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 32(1), pages 143-155, January.
    11. Parolo, Pietro Della Briotta & Pan, Raj Kumar & Ghosh, Rumi & Huberman, Bernardo A. & Kaski, Kimmo & Fortunato, Santo, 2015. "Attention decay in science," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 9(4), pages 734-745.
    12. Mehri, Ali & Darooneh, Amir H. & Shariati, Ashrafalsadat, 2012. "The complex networks approach for authorship attribution of books," Physica A: Statistical Mechanics and its Applications, Elsevier, vol. 391(7), pages 2429-2437.
    13. Efstathios Stamatatos, 2009. "A survey of modern authorship attribution methods," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(3), pages 538-556, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jennifer A. Byrne & Yasunori Park & Rachael A. West & Amanda Capes-Davis & Bertrand Favier & Guillaume Cabanac & Cyril Labbé, 2021. "The thin ret(raction) line: biomedical journal responses to incorrect non-targeting nucleotide sequence reagents in human gene knockdown publications," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 3513-3534, April.
    2. Sida Feng & Lingzi Feng & Fang Han & Ye Zhang & Yanqing Ren & Lixue Wang & Junpeng Yuan, 2024. "Citation network analysis of retractions in molecular biology field," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 129(8), pages 4795-4817, August.
    3. Cyril Labbé & Natalie Grima & Thierry Gautier & Bertrand Favier & Jennifer A Byrne, 2019. "Semi-automated fact-checking of nucleotide sequence reagents in biomedical research publications: The Seek & Blastn tool," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(3), pages 1-22, March.
    4. Cyril Labbé & Guillaume Cabanac & Rachael A. West & Thierry Gautier & Bertrand Favier & Jennifer A. Byrne, 2020. "Flagging incorrect nucleotide sequence reagents in biomedical papers: To what extent does the leading publication format impede automatic error detection?," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 124(2), pages 1139-1156, August.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Abramo, Giovanni & D'Angelo, Ciriaco Andrea & Grilli, Leonardo, 2021. "The effects of citation-based research evaluation schemes on self-citation behavior," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 15(4).
    2. Horbach, S.P.J.M.(Serge) & Halffman, W.(Willem), 2019. "The extent and causes of academic text recycling or ‘self-plagiarism’," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 492-502.
    3. Tamarinde L Haven & Joeri K Tijdink & Brian C Martinson & Lex M Bouter, 2019. "Perceptions of research integrity climate differ between academic ranks and disciplinary fields: Results from a survey among academic researchers in Amsterdam," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 14(1), pages 1-16, January.
    4. Franca Agnoli & Jelte M Wicherts & Coosje L S Veldkamp & Paolo Albiero & Roberto Cubelli, 2017. "Questionable research practices among italian research psychologists," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 12(3), pages 1-17, March.
    5. Daniele Fanelli & Rodrigo Costas & Vincent Larivière, 2015. "Misconduct Policies, Academic Culture and Career Stage, Not Gender or Pressures to Publish, Affect Scientific Integrity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 10(6), pages 1-18, June.
    6. Christian Schneijderberg & Nicolai Götze & Lars Müller, 2022. "A study of 25 years of publication outputs in the German academic profession," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 127(1), pages 1-28, January.
    7. Tom Van der Stocken & Jean Hugé & Evelien Deboelpaep & Maarten P. M. Vanhove & Luc Janssens de Bisthoven & Nico Koedam, 2016. "Academic capacity building: holding up a mirror," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 106(3), pages 1277-1280, March.
    8. Dell'Anno, Roberto & Caferra, Rocco & Morone, Andrea, 2020. "A “Trojan Horse” in the peer-review process of fee-charging economic journals," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(3).
    9. Michael Carolan, 2024. "Do universities support solutions-oriented collaborative research? Constraints to wicked problems scholarship in higher education," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 11(1), pages 1-12, December.
    10. Hendrik P. van Dalen, 2019. "Values of Economists Matter in the Art and Science of Economics," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 72(3), pages 472-499, August.
    11. Patricia Laurens & Christian Le Bas & Linh-Chi Vo, 2024. "Evolution of academic research in French business schools (2008-2018): isomorphism and heterogeneity," Post-Print hal-04666299, HAL.
    12. Tony Ross-Hellauer & Thomas Klebel & Petr Knoth & Nancy Pontika, 2024. "Value dissonance in research(er) assessment: individual and perceived institutional priorities in review, promotion, and tenure," Science and Public Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 51(3), pages 337-351.
    13. Stephan Puehringer & Georg Wolfmayr, 2023. "Competitive Performativity of (Academic) Social Networks. The subjectivation of Competition on ResearchGate, Google Scholar and Twitter," ICAE Working Papers 150, Johannes Kepler University, Institute for Comprehensive Analysis of the Economy.
    14. Bruno S. Frey, 2021. "Backward‐oriented economics," Kyklos, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 74(2), pages 187-195, May.
    15. Ben Purvis & Hannah Keding & Ashley Lewis & Phil Northall, 2023. "Critical reflections of postgraduate researchers on a collaborative interdisciplinary research project," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 10(1), pages 1-13, December.
    16. Guillaume Cabanac & Cyril Labbé, 2021. "Prevalence of nonsensical algorithmically generated papers in the scientific literature," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(12), pages 1461-1476, December.
    17. Antonio Fernandez-Cano, 2021. "Letter to the Editor: publish, publish … cursed!," Scientometrics, Springer;Akadémiai Kiadó, vol. 126(4), pages 3673-3682, April.
    18. Yin, Yian & Wang, Dashun, 2017. "The time dimension of science: Connecting the past to the future," Journal of Informetrics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 608-621.
    19. Bruno S. Frey, 2010. "Withering academia?," IEW - Working Papers 512, Institute for Empirical Research in Economics - University of Zurich.
    20. Erin C McKiernan, 2017. "Imagining the “open” university: Sharing scholarship to improve research and education," PLOS Biology, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(10), pages 1-25, October.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:scient:v:110:y:2017:i:3:d:10.1007_s11192-016-2209-6. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.