Nature Warning: There are errors in the DNA or RNA sequence of the experimental reagents for more than 700 studies

A computer analysis study of nearly 12,000 human genetics papers found that the DNA or RNA sequence of the experimental reagents in more than 700 studies had errors

Since 2015, Byrn has been studying errors in genetics research, when she discovered the problem in five papers reporting a common experiment: using a small piece of DNA to inactivate a gene in cancer cells

Byrn continues to search for papers with similar errors

To measure the severity of this problem, the research team screened two journals that they knew had previously published flawed papers: Gene (the research team checked all 7,400 original papers published from 2007 to 2018) and Oncology Reports (2014 All 3,800 open access papers published between 2016 and 2018)

Targeted search

Byrne and her team also pointed to three sub-fields of cancer genetics, where they had previously found problems: papers on the role of specific types of microRNAs in cancer cells; reports on cisplatin or gemcitabine in the treatment of cancer cells or cancer patients The papers; there are also some papers reporting the elimination of the activity of any of the 17 genes to determine their function in cancer cells

The researchers stated in a preprint published on bioRxiv on July 31 that a total of 712 papers—about 6% of the total screened—have errors in the sequence of their nucleotide reagents

Oncology Reports editor-in-chief and virologist Demetrios Spandidos told Nature that Byrne had contacted him, but there was not enough time to evaluate all the data described in the manuscript

Unintentional error?

Byrne said that some problems may be unintentional errors

The researchers wrote: "We have found that the proportion of nucleotide sequence errors in human gene function papers is unacceptably high.