Bruce Beutler has informed Science that experiments performed in his laboratory have failed to reproduce clearly the foundational observations of the 2014 article “MAVS, cGAS, and endogenous retroviruses in T-independent B cell responses” (1). In contrast to data presented (Figs. 1 and 3), he now finds that deficiency of MAVS and/or cGAS does not cause a robust decrease in type II T-independent B cell responses. At most, a decreased antibody response is observed in Stinggt/gt mice. Although some of the data shown in the paper may be correct, the core observations and conclusions are not. Beutler and a majority of coauthors have therefore requested retraction of the paper.
The editors nonetheless note that authors Ming Zeng and Xiaolei Shi stand by the findings of the paper. These authors do not agree to this retraction due to disagreement with the design of the reproduction experiments.
The editors have worked with the authors to determine the appropriate outcome and have decided retraction is appropriate in light of the lack of robustness of the main finding.
References
- 1.Zeng M, et al. Science. 2014;346:1486. doi: 10.1126/science.346.6216.1486. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar] [Retracted]