新年礼物----给无脑NATURE粉# Biology - 生物学
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Key points: However, of the 976 citations of the Bellgrau et al. paper,
about 700 were subsequent to publication of the retraction
Why I retracted my Nature paper: A guest post from David Vaux about
correcting the scientific record
David Vaux
In September 1995 Nature asked me to review a manuscript by Bellgrau and co-
workers, which subsequently appeared. I was very excited by this paper, as
it showed that expression of CD95L on Sertoli cells in allogeneic mismatched
testes tissue transplanted under the kidney capsule was able to induce
apoptosis of invading cytotoxic T cells, thereby preventing rejection. As I
wrote in a News and Views piece, the implications of these findings were
enormous – grafts engineered to express CD95L would be able to prevent
rejection without generalized immunosuppression.
In fact, I was so taken by these findings that we started generation of
transgenic mice that expressed CD95L on their islet beta cells to see if it
would allow islet cell grafts to avoid rejection and provide a cure for
diabetes in mismatched recipients.
Little did we know that instead of providing an answer to transplant
rejection, these experiments would teach us a great deal about editorial
practices and the difficulty of correcting errors once they appear in the
literature.
What we found was that unfortunately, these grafts were not protected, and
indeed CD95L-expressing grafts seemed to provoke more, not less, of an
inflammatory response. Puzzled by this, we decided to repeat the experiments
by Bellgrau et al., but unlike them, we found that allogeneic mismatched
testes grafts were rejected. A subsequent more thorough reading of the
literature revealed that similar mismatched testes tissue grafts had been
performed previously, both in the mouse and the rat, and their results were
the same as ours, and opposite those of Bellgrau et al., i.e. the unmatched
testes tissue was rejected.
Knowing that Nature had an explicit editorial policy to publish, in some
form, work which refutes an important conclusion of any paper which appears
in its pages, we submitted our findings describing the transgenic mice and
our failure to replicate the work from Bellgrau et al. to Nature. We
received two very positive reviews, but based on a third, very negative one,
from Bellgrau et al., the editors decided not to publish our findings as a
letter or as correspondence.
In 1996, we submitted our manuscript to Nature Medicine, but it was rejected
without review, with the comment from the editor in chief, Adrian Ivinson,
that he did “not think formal submission to Nature Medicine would be
appropriate”. We then sent the manuscript to PNAS, where it has attracted
305 citations. Subsequently, another paper appeared describing transplants
of beta cells from CD95L transgenic mice, and their findings were the same
as ours, i.e. graft CD95L did not confer protection, but if anything,
provoked inflammation. To our surprise, this paper appeared in Nature
Medicine, accompanied by a News and Views by Lau and Stoeckert emphasizing
the importance of the findings.
I was becoming increasingly frustrated by Nature’s refusal to abide by its
own ethical policies to publish rebuttals, and Nature Medicine’s decisions
apparently based on papers’ sources rather than their contents, when I had
a flash of inspiration – I had published a News and Views extolling the
virtues of Bellgrau et al.’s paper – now I could retract it!
I wrote to Phillip Campbell at Nature saying that I wished to retract my
News and Views piece because I no longer had confidence in the findings on
which it was based. My reasons for doubt were:
1.We were unable to reproduce Bellgrau et al.’s findings;
2.Three earlier groups who had published similar experiments had also come
to the opposite conclusion;
3.The failure of transgenic CD95L to protect allogeneic islet cells was
contrary to the model they proposed.
I added “I regret having to take this course, but as Nature refuses to
abide by its own ethical policy, namely to “publish refutations of any
important conclusion that appears in its pages,” I am left with no other
option.
Thankfully, Nature did agree to publish the retraction, but, perhaps
unsurprisingly, they were unhappy with the wording. The retraction included
just two sentences:
I wish to point out that I no longer stand by the views reported in my News
and Views article “Immunology: Ways around rejection” (Nature 377, 576–
577; 1995), which dealt with a paper in the same issue (“A role for CD95
ligand in preventing graft rejection” by D. Bellgrau et al. — Nature 377,
630–635; 1995). My colleagues and I have been unable to reproduce some of
the results of Bellgrau et al., as reported by J. Allison et al. (Proc. Natl
Acad. Sci. USA 94, 3943-3947; 1997).
This was accompanied by:
D. Bellgrau et al. consider that their results are reproducible and stand by
them. They note, however, that the magnification in Figure1g of their paper
should be 113 times, not 45 times as printed. Both groups believe that
other published data support their views, and interested readers can contact
them directly for further details. — Editor, Nature.
Note that they did not say that the results were reproducible, or that they
had actually reproduced them, they just considered them to be reproducible.
Indeed, no one, including Bellgrau et al., have subsequently reported
reproducing these results. Furthermore, it turned out that Sertoli cells do
not even express CD95L.
The retraction was published in 1998, and has attracted 16 citations of its
own. However, of the 976 citations of the Bellgrau et al. paper, about 700
were subsequent to publication of the retraction, so it’s clear many remain
unaware that its findings are questionable. Clearly, the processes that
allow the scientific record to self-correct can be improved, not least by
Nature.
about 700 were subsequent to publication of the retraction
Why I retracted my Nature paper: A guest post from David Vaux about
correcting the scientific record
David Vaux
In September 1995 Nature asked me to review a manuscript by Bellgrau and co-
workers, which subsequently appeared. I was very excited by this paper, as
it showed that expression of CD95L on Sertoli cells in allogeneic mismatched
testes tissue transplanted under the kidney capsule was able to induce
apoptosis of invading cytotoxic T cells, thereby preventing rejection. As I
wrote in a News and Views piece, the implications of these findings were
enormous – grafts engineered to express CD95L would be able to prevent
rejection without generalized immunosuppression.
In fact, I was so taken by these findings that we started generation of
transgenic mice that expressed CD95L on their islet beta cells to see if it
would allow islet cell grafts to avoid rejection and provide a cure for
diabetes in mismatched recipients.
Little did we know that instead of providing an answer to transplant
rejection, these experiments would teach us a great deal about editorial
practices and the difficulty of correcting errors once they appear in the
literature.
What we found was that unfortunately, these grafts were not protected, and
indeed CD95L-expressing grafts seemed to provoke more, not less, of an
inflammatory response. Puzzled by this, we decided to repeat the experiments
by Bellgrau et al., but unlike them, we found that allogeneic mismatched
testes grafts were rejected. A subsequent more thorough reading of the
literature revealed that similar mismatched testes tissue grafts had been
performed previously, both in the mouse and the rat, and their results were
the same as ours, and opposite those of Bellgrau et al., i.e. the unmatched
testes tissue was rejected.
Knowing that Nature had an explicit editorial policy to publish, in some
form, work which refutes an important conclusion of any paper which appears
in its pages, we submitted our findings describing the transgenic mice and
our failure to replicate the work from Bellgrau et al. to Nature. We
received two very positive reviews, but based on a third, very negative one,
from Bellgrau et al., the editors decided not to publish our findings as a
letter or as correspondence.
In 1996, we submitted our manuscript to Nature Medicine, but it was rejected
without review, with the comment from the editor in chief, Adrian Ivinson,
that he did “not think formal submission to Nature Medicine would be
appropriate”. We then sent the manuscript to PNAS, where it has attracted
305 citations. Subsequently, another paper appeared describing transplants
of beta cells from CD95L transgenic mice, and their findings were the same
as ours, i.e. graft CD95L did not confer protection, but if anything,
provoked inflammation. To our surprise, this paper appeared in Nature
Medicine, accompanied by a News and Views by Lau and Stoeckert emphasizing
the importance of the findings.
I was becoming increasingly frustrated by Nature’s refusal to abide by its
own ethical policies to publish rebuttals, and Nature Medicine’s decisions
apparently based on papers’ sources rather than their contents, when I had
a flash of inspiration – I had published a News and Views extolling the
virtues of Bellgrau et al.’s paper – now I could retract it!
I wrote to Phillip Campbell at Nature saying that I wished to retract my
News and Views piece because I no longer had confidence in the findings on
which it was based. My reasons for doubt were:
1.We were unable to reproduce Bellgrau et al.’s findings;
2.Three earlier groups who had published similar experiments had also come
to the opposite conclusion;
3.The failure of transgenic CD95L to protect allogeneic islet cells was
contrary to the model they proposed.
I added “I regret having to take this course, but as Nature refuses to
abide by its own ethical policy, namely to “publish refutations of any
important conclusion that appears in its pages,” I am left with no other
option.
Thankfully, Nature did agree to publish the retraction, but, perhaps
unsurprisingly, they were unhappy with the wording. The retraction included
just two sentences:
I wish to point out that I no longer stand by the views reported in my News
and Views article “Immunology: Ways around rejection” (Nature 377, 576–
577; 1995), which dealt with a paper in the same issue (“A role for CD95
ligand in preventing graft rejection” by D. Bellgrau et al. — Nature 377,
630–635; 1995). My colleagues and I have been unable to reproduce some of
the results of Bellgrau et al., as reported by J. Allison et al. (Proc. Natl
Acad. Sci. USA 94, 3943-3947; 1997).
This was accompanied by:
D. Bellgrau et al. consider that their results are reproducible and stand by
them. They note, however, that the magnification in Figure1g of their paper
should be 113 times, not 45 times as printed. Both groups believe that
other published data support their views, and interested readers can contact
them directly for further details. — Editor, Nature.
Note that they did not say that the results were reproducible, or that they
had actually reproduced them, they just considered them to be reproducible.
Indeed, no one, including Bellgrau et al., have subsequently reported
reproducing these results. Furthermore, it turned out that Sertoli cells do
not even express CD95L.
The retraction was published in 1998, and has attracted 16 citations of its
own. However, of the 976 citations of the Bellgrau et al. paper, about 700
were subsequent to publication of the retraction, so it’s clear many remain
unaware that its findings are questionable. Clearly, the processes that
allow the scientific record to self-correct can be improved, not least by
Nature.
