Recently, the journal Molecular Therapy withdrew a research paper titled circTulp4 functions in Alzheimer’s disease pathogenesis by regulating its parental gene, Tulp4, published by Peking University Medical School Ma Nana et al.
Image credit: Molecular Therapy
According to the journal’s retraction notice, a reader raised concerns about the reuse of images and data in the article, and after investigating the reader’s questions, the editor found the article There is indeed a problem of data reuse, so the corresponding author was contacted to withdraw the manuscript.
Image credit: Molecular Therapy
Simply put, some pictures in the paper appear in multiple papers. However, according to the revelations of netizens on Weiming BBS of Peking University, this matter does not seem to be simple.
National Scholarship Winner, Outstanding Peking University Graduate Suspected of Academic Misconduct
On November 21, 2021, an unnamed BBS of Peking University was shocked to see a breaking news post. Some netizens posted on the forum questioning the possibility of an outstanding graduate of Peking University, a national scholarship winner, and a 2020 doctor of the Ministry of Medicine. There is academic misconduct.
According to the whistleblower (allegedly a graduate student in the laboratory next door), during the three-year period of his doctoral study (including half a year of off-site classes and being unable to participate in the experiment), M classmates Published 6 English SCI papers (including 1 review) as the first author, and the most important research results were published in Molecular Therapy (IF>11).
Image source: Untitled BBS
Specifically, a paper by M reported that circular RNA (circTULP4) is associated with the pathological formation of Alzheimer’s disease (AD), and circTULP4 formed by intron splicing is enriched in In the nucleus, it affects neural function by binding to the nuclear small RNA U1 and then promoting the transcription of the parent gene TULP4.
But the person who broke the news said that because his doctoral laboratory was also conducting related experiments and came to the opposite conclusion, he questioned that the above work was suspected to be fraudulent, and Unnamed BBS and Pubpeer published their own doubts about the above paper.
Image source: Untitled BBS
Exonic circular RNAs are generally enriched in the cytoplasm, while circTULP4 is a pure exonic circular RNA without any intronic sequences;
Image source: Untitled BBS
circTULP4 does not promote transcription of parental gene TULP4;
Image source: Untitled BBS
Copy and paste other’s heterologous primers, doubtful mechanism experiments, etc.
Image source: Untitled BBS
Yi Zuo and his mentor respond at the end of the session
For the doubts of netizens, the first work and the corresponding author have responded to the unnamed BBS and Pubpeer.
Image source: Pubpeer
Among them, student M responded to several questions on Pubpeer, such as releasing the relevant sequence alignment map, indicating that circTULP4 does contain introns.
Image source: Pubpeer
Also admits that data and image reuse is not compliant, and details several of her remaining articles.
Image source: Pubpeer
In addition to student M’s own reply, his advisor, one of the co-corresponding authors of the above-mentioned questioned paper, made a relevant response at Unnamed BBS.
According to the teacher’s response, the above article does have the problem of misuse of pictures, and on November 18, 2021, a letter has been sent to the editorial department requesting the withdrawal of the manuscript.
At the same time, the teacher also responded to the dispute between introns and exons, acknowledging that the lack of verification in the later stage was a big problem for their research group.
Finally, the teacher also pointed out that he has made a formal application to the school as the head of the research group, asking the academic committee to start the data investigation, and the research group will provide all the original data.
Image source: Untitled BBS
Not only that, but the teacher further responded to some subjective questions of the netizen who broke the news, which can be said to basically refute the netizen’s point of view that Ma was not serious about scientific research.
In the eyes of this teacher, Ma is very hardworking, often soaking in the laboratory, testing the kits one by one according to different literatures. He also responded to the question of whether student M, who became a monk halfway, could complete the difficult experiment.
Image source: Untitled BBS
M’s master’s thesis is titled “Effect of “One Twist Gold” on the Neural Development of Caenorhabditis elegans Larvae and Its Mechanism”, which indeed involved some experiments related to gene expression .
Image source: Peking University Library
Subsequently, the whistleblower also replied to the tutor in the forum, saying that he only questioned academic research.
Image source: Untitled BBS
Paper illustrations are suspected to be plagiarized from the kit, Peking University: related issues are under investigation
But regardless of whether the circular RNA (circTULP4) described in the paper has an intron or not, and whether M is working hard, the doubters listed a problem in the follow-up update of the post:
In addition to the reuse of pictures in different articles,Some pictures in this article may come from commercial kits and have only been simply modified.
Image source: Untitled BBS
There are four flow charts in the text (Figures 3B, 3E, 4B, and 3D) that are very similar to the flow charts in the instructions for the commercial kits.
Figures 3B, 4B appear to be copied and modified from two commercial kits from BersinBio, and Figure 3E, appears to be a workflow diagram in the kit protocol from Millipore Sigma.
Image source: Pubpeer
In this regard, the doubters ridiculed: “Maybe as described by the corresponding author W, M is addicted to testing the kits one by one according to different literatures, so much so that even the kit instructions It’s all plagiarized.”
Image source: Untitled BBS
With regard to the questioning of netizens, on May 23rd,Peking University’s online reply work account responded in the questioning post that the relevant departments had started an investigation.
Image source: Molecular Therapy