Nature Medicine has issued an editorial expression of concern for a 2007 study that examined the role of microRNA-133 in cardiac hypertrophy, warning readers to interpret parts of the paper cautiously after concerns were raised about images used in the research.
The notice, published October 28, concerns the article “MicroRNA-133 controls cardiac hypertrophy,” originally published online in April 2007. The editorial action does not retract the study. Instead, it alerts readers to specific questions about northern blot images in the paper and its supplementary material.
Questions focus on image similarities
According to the editors, the concerns involve images in Figure 1c and Supplementary Figure S2c. In Figure 1, lanes labeled as ventricles 1 and 2 appear highly similar in both the miR-133 and tRNAMet blots. The notice also says that the band in the first atria lane of the miR-133 blot appears highly similar to the ventricle bands in lanes 1 and 2.
A related issue was identified in Supplementary Figure S2c. There, the miR-1 and tRNAMet blots contain ventricle lanes 1 and 2 that appear highly similar, the editors said.
Northern blots are laboratory techniques used to detect specific RNA molecules. In a paper centered on a microRNA’s biological role, the integrity and interpretation of RNA-expression images can matter significantly because they help support claims about where and when a molecule is present.
Original data are no longer available
The journal said the original data could not be reviewed because they are no longer available owing to the article’s age. That absence prevented a definitive resolution of the image concerns and led the editors to issue the expression of concern.
“Readers are therefore advised to interpret these data with caution,” the notice says. The wording is important: Nature Medicine has not stated that the study’s conclusions are invalid, nor has it described the issue as a finding of misconduct. Its action is a formal signal that parts of the evidentiary record cannot now be fully assessed.
Editorial expressions of concern are among the mechanisms journals use when questions about a published work remain unresolved. They can be issued while an investigation is incomplete, when underlying records are unavailable, or when the available information does not support either leaving a paper unflagged or retracting it outright.
Authors differ on the notice
The notice records that several authors do not agree with the editorial expression of concern: Alessandra Carè, Daniele Catalucci, Federica Felicetti, Désirée Bonci, Patrizia Segnalini, Leonardo Elia, Morten Høydal, Kirk L. Peterson, Carlo M. Croce and Gianluigi Condorelli.
The publisher said it had been unable to contact Segnalini. It also noted that Cesare Peschle, an author on the paper, is deceased. Other authors did not respond to correspondence from the editor or publisher about the notice.
That split response illustrates a recurring challenge in long-lived scientific literature. Questions can emerge many years after publication, when laboratory archives, personnel and original experimental materials may no longer be accessible. The further a paper is from its publication date, the harder it can become to independently reconstruct how individual figures were generated.
Why the paper still matters
The 2007 article addressed cardiac hypertrophy, a process in which heart muscle enlarges in response to stress and disease. MicroRNAs, small RNA molecules that help regulate gene activity, became a major area of biomedical research in the years surrounding the paper’s publication. Findings about their roles in the heart helped shape later efforts to understand molecular pathways involved in cardiovascular disease.
Because of that context, a cautionary editorial note can be useful even when it arrives long after the initial publication. Researchers reviewing the literature, designing new experiments or assessing prior evidence can distinguish between the study as a whole and the particular data the journal has identified as uncertain.
The notice is also a reminder that publication is not the end of scientific scrutiny. Journals, authors and readers may revisit research when credible questions arise, while the availability of underlying data remains central to resolving those questions fairly.
What the notice does and does not say
- It identifies concerns about apparent similarities in specified northern blot lanes.
- It says the original data are unavailable because of the paper’s age.
- It advises caution in interpreting the affected data.
- It does not retract the 2007 study.
- It does not state that the paper’s overall conclusions have been invalidated.
For readers of the original cardiac microRNA study, the practical takeaway is narrow but consequential: the figures named by Nature Medicine should not be treated as settled evidence without considering the journal’s warning. The broader scientific questions explored by the paper may continue to be investigated through subsequent research, but this particular publication now carries a permanent editorial qualification.
This article is based on reporting by Nature Medicine. Read the original article.
Originally published on nature.com
