PLOS Pathogens has retracted a paper"Pseudomonas aeruginosa–induced nociceptor activation increases susceptibility to infection" by a former group at Harvard following a postdoc’s allegations the work contained manipulated data.
The postdoc contacted the editor at PLOS Pathogens in August 2022 with concerns about the article. They alleged some data in figure 5 had been changed to support the claims in the paper. The retraction notice doesn’t repeat the postdoc’s allegations of manipulation. Instead, it attributes the retraction to "concerns about the reliability of the reported results and conclusions" related to six figures, including figure 5. The authors acknowledged "some data underlying the figures of concern are no longer available", according to the notice.
The notice also stated the authors told editors they had combined multiple experiments during data preparation and analysis, and noted other factors that may have contributed to errors in the work. After receiving the postdoc’s report, PLOS launched an investigation into the paper and reassessed the article, identifying additional duplications and errors.
