Researchers retract a paper when they realize they had sequenced the wrong snail’s genome – Retraction Watch (blog)

Researchers in China thought they had sequenced the genomes of two snails that help transmit diseases to other species an important first step to stopping the spread. But their hopes were soon dashed after they realized they had misidentified one of the snails.

The researchers published their findings earlier this year in the journal Parasites & Vectors. In the paper, the authors stressed that understanding the genetic makeup of these molluscs is important because many freshwater snails are intermediate hosts for flatworm parasites and transmit infectious diseases to humans and other animals. They also acknowledged that identifying snail species from their appearance alone can be tricky.

Indeed, not long after the study was published, a reader raised concerns that the authors had misidentified one of the snails. After re-examining their data, the authors realized their mistake: They had not checked their results against a genome database, called Basic Local Alignment Search Tool (BLAST), which compares biological sequences against known ones and finds regions of similarity. If they had, the authors may have discovered they had sequenced the wrong species.

Heres theretraction notice for The complete mitochondrial genomes of two freshwater snails provide new protein-coding gene rearrangement models and phylogenetic implications, published in January 2017:

The authors are retracting this article [1]. A reader recently raised questions related to the identification of one of the snail species whose complete mitochondrial (mt) genomes have been characterised in our article, because the gene order and mt genome sequence of the sample of Radix swinhoei (family Lymnaeidae) strongly resemble those of Physella acuta (family Physidae) (GenBank JQ390525.1 and JQ390526.1) published by Nolan et al. [2].

The initial morphology-based identification of the snail as Radix swinhoei was not tested with BLAST searches and as a result we did not realise that we had characterised the mitochondrial genome of a different species. Upon re-examination of our data, we suggest that the sample Radix swinhoei does in fact represent a species of Physella (referred to as Physella sp.). Because of this misidentification and the fact that the phylogenetic analysis did not include members of the family Physidae, the conclusions drawn from the Radix swinhoei sample in our article are incorrect.

All authors agree with this retraction.

We contacted the papers corresponding author, Yinchan Hu, based at the Chinese Academy of Fishery Sciences in the Ministry of Agriculture in Guangzhou, as well as the first author, Xidong Mu, and second-to-last author, Hongmei Song, both based at the same institution. We will update the post if we hear back.

Hat tip: Rolf Degen

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Researchers retract a paper when they realize they had sequenced the wrong snail's genome - Retraction Watch (blog)