Origins and significance of published errors in high impact factor cancer and biomedical journals

Abstract

Reliable papers are at the heart of the scientific enterprise, where researchers contribute to and use the literature to advance understanding. However, recent studies on gene research papers have identified misconduct and systematic fraud, predominantly in lower impact factor (IF) journals (IF<7). Analysing 392 cell lines and 3,370 nucleotide sequence reagent identities across circular RNA (circRNA) papers in high IF journals found that 51% (60/118) papers described at least one wrongly identified sequence and/or problematic cell line. This represents a widespread problem, where some materials in circRNA publications across high IF journals do not align with published results. Correcting these errors requires input from publishers, who often do not respond to correction requests; therefore, PubPeer, a post-publication commentary platform, has been used by many. We examined publisher responses to PubPeer posts about sequence errors in 107 original articles in the journals Molecular Cancer (n=86) and Oncogene (n=21). Most papers had no responses on PubPeer or published corrections about the queried errors, indicating that unreliable papers remain in the literature and are hard to correct post-publication. Finally, to understand the experiences of postgraduate research students and ECRs regarding publication integrity, we conducted an anonymous online qualitative survey of 34 postgraduate research students and ECRs. Some reported experiencing negative impacts on their mental health, delays in the progress of their own research, and implications on their career due to loss of time and resources. In contrast, others shared positive experiences, where, with adequate education and skills, they developed new research and gained confidence as researchers. Taken together, we demonstrate that unreliable literature continues to be a problem, can be difficult to correct, and meaningfully affects the research and careers of ECRs and postgraduate students.