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Verification of human nucleotide sequence reagents and cell line identities in original circRNA articles published in
Pranujan Pathmendra1, Francisco J Enguita2, Jennifer A Byrne3
1The University of Sydney Faculty of Medicine and Health.
Abstract:
Numbers of research articles studying circRNAs have increased rapidly since 2017. Previous analyses of human circRNA articles in two high impact factor cancer research journals identified papers with wrongly identified nucleotide sequence reagents and circRNAs whose identities could not be independently verified. In the present study, verification of human nucleotide sequence reagent and cell line identities in retracted circRNA articles published from 2017-2021 in high impact factor journals found wrongly identified nucleotide sequences and/or cell lines in all 13 retracted papers. Similar analyses of human circRNA papers published in high impact factor journals in 2022 found at least one wrongly identified reagent in 51% (60/118) papers, where 52/118 (44%) papers described wrongly identified nucleotide sequence reagents and 22/118 (19%) described wrongly identified cell lines. In addition, some 2022 circRNA papers described circRNA probes of uncertain targeting specificity (34/118, 29%), non-verifiable nucleotide sequence reagents (25/118, 21%), claimed miRNA reagents whose miRNA targets were not indexed by MirGeneDB (13/118, 11%) and/or non-verifiable cell line identifiers (6/118, 5%). Overall, wrongly identified and/or queried reagents were noted in 73% (86/118) 2022 circRNA papers in high IF journals, highlighting the need for critical engagement with the human circRNA literature.