Abstract
In a recent issue of Genetic and Molecular Research, a manuscript, by Sun and colleagues from the Nanjing Agricultural University, China 1 , entitled “Cell proliferation and apoptosis in the fetal and neonatal ovary of guinea pigs” was published. As it happens, this manuscript had been submitted previously to Laboratory Animals in 2011 and eventually was rejected for serious doubts on the anesthesia used. In the first version of the manuscript the anesthesia method was described as follows: “Fetal guinea pig ovaries from pregnant gilts were obtained by hysterectomy performed under anesthesia with lidocaine on day 30, 40, 50, 60 and 68 post coitum.” This manuscript was rejected with request for major revisions and resubmission. In 2012, the second and third revisions a combination of methods with lidocaine, ketamine and xylazine were submitted, but with request for revisions. While in the fourth revision “Fetal guinea pig ovaries from pregnant gilts were obtained by hysterectomy performed under anesthesia with isoflurane on day 30, 40, 50, 60 and 68 post coitum. Neonatal guinea pig ovaries from neonatal pups were obtained by ovariectomy performed under isoflurane anesthesia on day 1 postpartum. Briefly, Pregnant female guinea pigs were anaesthetized with isoflurane delivered at 5% during induction and at 1-2% via a facemask during surgery.” Most astonishingly, in all submitted manuscripts, the figures were identical to those published in GMR 1 . Therefore, Laboratory Animals rejected the manuscript, and raised serious doubts, that the anesthesia described in the last revision was actually applied. Furthermore, the authors were advised that, if they should publish this data elsewhere, Laboratory Animals would react and may push forward with scientific misconduct. In addition, the Dean of the Nanjing Agricultural University was informed of this misconduct, but failed to respond.
When the manuscript was announced “in press” in Genetic and Molecular Research, we informed the editorial office of GMR on the content of the manuscripts that were previously submitted to our Journal, by pointing out discordances in anesthetic procedures. Given that GMR has not reacted, despite the assurance that the editor in chief of GMR was informed, this discredits not only the author of the manuscript, and its University, but also the Journal that publishes such data. It is established, that between the first submission in 2011 and the publication in 2014, figures remained identical all along. This leaves serious concerns regarding the changes in anesthesia and whether they were actually performed. It is easy to change the wording but is more difficult and expensive to perform the whole study under novel experimental conditions. Yet, for a publisher and editor, it is difficult to judge whether the conditions described in a submitted manuscript were actually applied. However, GMR was informed and they published the data anyway. So, I had to react. It is not acceptable from a scientific and ethical point-of-view, just to change the wording but not perform the experiments under the described conditions. Given the wealth of Journals, it is difficult to follow the different manuscripts and obtain information where and when a manuscript has been submitted before. Therefore, it seems important to organize a network between different Journals and publishers to avoid such unethical behavior in publishing in the future.