A 2017 Nature paper linking maternal gut bacteria to autism-like traits in mice received an editorial expression of concern last week because of apparent data duplications.<\/p>\n
The study<\/a>, which has been cited more than 680 times, found that certain maternal gut bacteria increase the chances that pups exposed to their mother\u2019s immune response in the womb will have patches of overactive neurons in their brains and atypical behavior.<\/p>\n Most read <\/p>\n But the data for two parameters used to measure sociability in the pups have recurring identical values across multiple datasets presented in 10 different figures, according to the expression of concern<\/a>. These issues cannot be addressed or verified because the original raw data files were lost during lab relocations, the addendum continues.<\/p>\n \u201cThe study\u2019s conclusions remain unchanged and have since been corroborated by subsequent studies,\u201d says investigator Jun Huh<\/a>, associate professor of immunology at Harvard Medical School.\u00a0<\/p>\n But Mu Yang<\/a>, a scientific-integrity sleuth and director of the Mouse NeuroBehavior Core at Columbia University, says these data \u201care critical for the conclusions,\u201d and the extent to which the duplications change the findings \u201ccan only be evaluated by comparing incorrect data with correct raw data.\u201d<\/p>\n In an email to The Transmitter, Huh listed two<\/a> subsequent studies<\/a> from his lab and a separate 2018 study<\/a> from researchers at the University of Virginia that support the 2017 study\u2019s findings.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cThe core concepts in the paper have been reproduced,\u201d says John Lukens<\/a>, professor of neuroscience at the University of Virginia and an investigator on the 2018 study. \u201cI don\u2019t think [the data duplications] should take away from what was reported in the original paper,\u201d which he credits as highly influential for the field.<\/p>\n The expression of concern notes a correction for a duplicated image that was flagged on PubPeer<\/a> in September 2025 by Sholto David, a molecular biologist and well-known sleuth who was awarded millions<\/a> in a separate whistleblower lawsuit for identifying issues in published research. Huh responded on PubPeer that same month, saying his team had inadvertently repeated the image and that he would contact the journal to correct it. (David says he reached out to Nature directly in September 2026 to notify editors that the image had still not been addressed.)\u00a0<\/p>\n But in reviewing the research for the original image, Huh decided to go through all the data in the paper in case there were other mistakes that had slipped through the cracks, which speaks to Huh\u2019s \u201cbeing thorough and honest,\u201d says Dan Littman<\/a>, professor of molecular immunology at New York University and an investigator on the paper. In doing so, Huh discovered \u201ca whole bunch of duplicate numbers\u201d in some of the data but could not verify the source and notified Nature, Littman says.<\/p>\n \u201cAs is the case when any concerns are raised, we investigated the matter carefully, following our established processes,\u201d said Francesca Cesari, chief biological, clinical and social sciences editor for Nature, in a statement provided through a spokesperson. \u201cBecause the authors have been unable to locate all the original raw data files we determined, in consultation with the Springer Nature Research Integrity Group, that issuing an EEoC was the most appropriate course of action.\u201d All the authors agreed with the expression of concern, except for first author Sangdoo Kim and Soyoung Ha, neither of whom responded to Nature\u2019s communications or could be reached for comment for this story.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n T<\/p>\n he research marked \u201ca significant advance in understanding potential environmental contributors for autism,\u201d Sarkis Mazmanian<\/a>, professor of microbiology at the California Institute of Technology, who was not involved in the work, told The Transmitter in 2017<\/a>.<\/p>\n The mechanism that led the mother\u2019s immune system to produce interleukin-17a, a specific inflammatory protein associated with an increased likelihood of autism, was not well understood when the study was published in 2017, according to the paper. The research identified a potential factor in the gut microbiome and became the basis for subsequent work on the topic, Littman says.<\/p>\n Six experts declined The Transmitter\u2019s request for comment on the paper\u2019s influence on the field and the potential impact of the data duplications on the paper\u2019s conclusions; Mazmanian<\/a>, along with more than 20 others, did not respond to the request.<\/p>\n More broadly, research linking the gut microbiome to autism is plagued by conceptual and methodological flaws, says Kevin Mitchell<\/a>, professor of genetics and neuroscience at Trinity College Dublin, who co-authored a Neuron perspective<\/a> on this issue in January. He says immune-activation protocols are unreliable when it comes to the offspring\u2019s behavior, and \u201cthe \u2018phenotypes\u2019 reported in the cortex occur quite frequently in wildtype mice.\u201d The Transmitter covered<\/a> other data duplications in notable gut-brain studies earlier this year.<\/p>\n \u201cThat literature is all over the place,\u201d Mitchell says. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 2017 Nature paper linking maternal gut bacteria to autism-like traits in mice received an editorial expression of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":632823,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[134,111,139,69],"class_list":["post-632822","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-health","tag-health","tag-new-zealand","tag-newzealand","tag-nz"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632822","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=632822"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/632822\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/632823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=632822"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=632822"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=632822"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}