2025-12-10 スイス連邦工科大学ローザンヌ校(EPFL)
<関連情報>
- https://actu.epfl.ch/news/scientists-investigate-400-biological-cold-cases/
- https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.07.663442v1
- https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2025.07.07.663460v1
ショウジョウバエの免疫に関する科学的主張の再現性:400件の出版物の遡及的分析 Reproducibility of Scientific Claims in Drosophila Immunity: A Retrospective Analysis of 400 Publications
Hannah Westlake,Fabrice David, Yao Tian, Kenan Krakovic, Asya Dolgikh, Liza Juravlev, Thomas Esmangart de Bournonville,Carboni, Claudia Melcarne, Tisheng Shan, Yang Wang, Yizhu Mu, Akshata Kotwal, Nadia Pirko, Jean Philippe Boquete, Fanny Schüpfer, Samuel Rommelaere, Mickael Poidevin, Zhonggeng Liu, Shu Kondo, Girish S. Ratnaparkhi,Sveta Chakrabarti, Guiqing Liu, Florent Masson, Li Xiaoxue, Mark A. Hanson, Haobo Jiang, Francesca Di Cara, Estee Kurant, Bruno Lemaitre
bioRxiv Posted: July 09, 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.07.663442
Abstract
Drosophila immunity has been the focus of intense study and has impacted other research fields including innate immunity and agriculturally or epidemiologically relevant investigations of insect pests and vectors. Unsurprisingly for such a large body of work, some published results were later found to be irreproducible. Although some results have been contradicted in the literature, many have no published follow-up, either due to a lack of research or low motivation to publish negative or contradictory results. We have addressed this by performing a reproducibility project that analyses the verifiability of claims from articles published on Drosophila immunity before 2011. To assess reproducibility, we extracted claims from 400 articles on the Drosophila immune response to bacteria and fungi and performed preliminary verification by comparing these claims to other published literature in the field. Using alternative approaches, we also experimentally tested some ‘unchallenged’ claims, which had no published follow-up. The intent of this analysis was to centralize evidence on insights and findings to improve clarity for scientists that may base research programs on these data. All our data are published on a publicly available website associated with this article (https://ReproSci.epfl.ch/) that encourages community participation. This article provides a short summary of claims that were found to have contradictory evidence, which may help the community to assess past findings on Drosophila immunity and improve clarity going forward.
400件の出版物を遡及的に分析した結果、生命科学研究分野全体にわたる再現不可能なパターンが明らかになった A retrospective analysis of 400 publications reveals patterns of irreproducibility across an entire life sciences research field
Joseph Lemaitre, Désirée Popelka, Blandine Ribotta, Hannah Westlake, Sveta Chakrabarti, Li Xiaoxue, Mark A. Hanson, Haobo Jiang, Francesca Di Cara, Estee Kurant, Fabrice David, Bruno Lemaitre
bioRxiv Posted July 09, 2025.
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1101/2025.07.07.663460
Abstract
The ReproSci project retrospectively analyzed the reproducibility of 1006 claims from 400 papers published between 1959 and 2011 in the field of Drosophila immunity. This project attempts to provide a comprehensive assessment, 14 years later, of the replicability of nearly all publications across an entire scientific community in experimental life sciences. We found that 61% of claims were verified, while only 7% were directly challenged (not reproducible), a replicability rate higher than previous assessments. Notably, 24% of claims had never been independently tested and remain unchallenged. We performed experimental validations of a selection of 45 unchallenged claim, that revealed that a significant fraction (38/45) of them is in fact non-reproducible. We also found that high-impact journals and top-ranked institutions are more likely to publish challenged claims. In line with the reproducibility crisis narrative, the rates of both challenged and unchallenged claims increased over time, especially as the field gained popularity. We characterized the uneven distribution of irreproducibility among first and last authors. Surprisingly, irreproducibility rates were similar between PhD students and postdocs, and did not decrease with experience or publication count. However, group leaders, who had prior experience as first authors in another team in the field, had lower irreproducibility rates, underscoring the importance of early-career training. Finally, authors with a more exploratory, short-term engagement with the field exhibited slightly higher rates of challenged claims and a markedly higher proportion of unchallenged ones. This systematic, field-wide retrospective study offers meaningful insights into the ongoing reproducibility crisis in experimental life sciences.
