EXPRESSION OF CONCERN: Pre-Symptomatic Detection of Prions by Cyclic Amplification of Protein Misfolding

C. Soto, L. Anderes, S. Suardi, F. Cardone, J. Castilla, M.-J. Frossard, S. Peano, P. Saa, L. Limido, M. Carbonatto, J. Ironside, J.-M. Torres, M. Pocchiari, and F. Tagliavini, "Pre-Symptomatic Detection of Prions by Cyclic Amplification of Protein Misfolding," FEBS Letters 579, no. 3 (2005): 638-642, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.febslet.2004.12.035. This Expression of Concern is for the above article, published online on 25 December 2004, in Wiley Online Library (http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/) and has been issued by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Michael Brunner; FEBS Press; and John Wiley and Sons Ltd. The journal received a report from a third party that there was evidence of undeclared spliced sections in Figure 2 and Figure 4 as well as a duplication of bands between those two figures. An investigation by the journal confirmed these concerns and detected additional evidence of undeclared splicing in Figure 3. The investigation also uncovered evidence of manipulation on non-data-containing portions of the western blot images in Figure 1. The authors responded to an inquiry by the publisher and have stated that they are not able to supply the original data due to the length of time since publication. In their response, the authors proposed a correction to change the duplicated lanes in Figure 4 to lanes from alternate experiments performed at the time, for which the authors have the original data. However, the parties concluded that this correction would not be appropriate. The authors also stated that non-data-containing elements of the western blots in Figure 1 may have been altered to improve readability, but the journal is not able to confirm this in the absence of raw data. The parties are concerned about the issues identified but also believe that they do not necessarily invalidate the conclusions of the paper. The parties agree with an Expression of Concern because the veracity of the experimental data could not be confirmed by viewing the original raw data. Authors C. Soto, J. Castilla, and F. Tagliavini agree with the Expression of Concern. All other authors could not be reached regarding the Expression of Concern.