《自然》记者满嘴跑火车，杂闻奇观：磁遗传学争议再起！
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原题目
《自然》奇观：指南针蛋白吸引猛烈批评
（作者| 刘实，译者| 胡绍凡， 责编| 肖梅）
这两周一直在“盯着”《自然》杂志的通讯员David Cyranoski会怎样报道2015年轰动中国乃至震惊世界的伟大发现：号称人类第六感 – 磁感 – 的“生物指南针”。
当年那场由《知识分子》饶毅、鲁白为主而导演的一场指控清华大学新引进小海龟张生家偷清华大学大海龟鲁白课题而发表“磁遗传”论文，并且还在后投稿却被先发表而抢了北大小海龟谢灿的“磁感应”发现的闹剧，最近却由鲁白-谢灿“合作”发表一篇完全否定张生家论文的论文而又热闹起来。当年要抢“成果”的那同样一帮人，现在却要逼着被抢人撤稿。
David Cyranoski过去关于此问题在《自然》发表过三篇新闻：
Discovery of long-sought biological compass claimed
16 November 2015
Neuroscientist fired after dispute over magnetic-protein research
05 November 2015
Chinese scientists row over long-sought protein that senses magnetism
21 September 2015
但作为《科学伦理》的主编，笔者曾为张生家案主持过正义。
为避免已经在这个问题上多次发表新闻的《自然》杂志的通讯员会按一些人的欲望把张生家“学术不端”的罪名坐实，把事态向更负能量的方向发展，笔者给David Cyranoski发去如下电子信：
全信自我抄袭, 如下：
Shi Liu <svl8epa@gmail.com> Mar 21
to David, bcc: me Hi David,
First from a Chinese media article and then from the online journal I learnt that Drs. Lu and Xie have published a joint research paper which, as claimed, has disproved the discovery reported by Dr. Zhang.
I am not an expert on magnetogenetics nor do I have time to compare those two papers. Based on my more than three decades of research experiences I can, however, tell that Drs. Lu and Xie's publication proved that Dr. Zhang did not "steal" Dr. Lu's research project and "grab" credit from Dr. Xie, as widely reported before including your three continuous news articles in Nature.
I noticed that the same person, Mr. Pang, who fought so hard but without success to become a first author in Dr. Zhang's paper, is the first author of this paper claiming that Dr. Zhang's findings are false. I am wondering, what if he had been granted the first author, what he would say now. Thinking this way, if Dr. Lu had been given an honor of the only corresponding author as he strongly demanded, would he now issue a retraction notice?
Thus, anyone with a normal sense would find this negative study is very unusual because it comes from the same group of authors who had fought very hard to become the authors of a paper that they are now disputing against. I also find it is unusual that this study is not published in the same journal where the criticized paper was published.
It appears to me that the "negative" publication of Drs. Lu and Xie just indicates the falsehood of all the allegations on Dr. Zhang made by this group of people. Of course, as I informed you earlier, ALL of Dr. Lu's accusations on Dr. Zhang had already been found as groundless by Tsinghua’s investigation. Most importantly, the remaining "misconduct" of not giving due credit to Dr. Lu and Mr. Pang becomes ridiculous as these people now claim their actual research performed later generated different results than those produced by Dr. Zhang and other real researchers then.
To my knowledge Dr. Lu’s negative publication is the first such publication. Third-party evaluation on Dr. Zhang and Dr. Lu’s conflicting claims are necessary before any call for retraction should be made. As you know actually from your own coverages no retraction has even been made for Dr. Han’s NgAgo genome-editing claim even though many negative studies have been published.
As I correctly concluded and communicated to Scientific Bulletin earlier, Dr. Zhang’s decision to acknowledge Dr. Lu and Mr. Pang but not to include them as co-authors was a correct decision and an ethical behavior. Dr. Lu’s demand for becoming a corresponding author on Dr. Zhang’s independent research was, actually, a severe misconduct. Mr. Pang’s contribution to the work at that time did not qualify him as an author.
Thus, I wish that you can write a follow-up news article on this and, better, objectively reflect the whole event and thus, at least partially, restore Dr. Zhang's damaged reputation.
Finally, if you will write this follow-up, I suggest that you will also update on the status of Dr. Xie’s discovery of magneto-sensing biocompass. As far as I know, Dr. Xie's Nature Materials paper has been questioned by Dr. Meister from Caltech, showing a lack of physical base for his claimed biocompass. Now, Dr. Lu’s group, in collaboration with Dr. Xie is claiming that calcium influx could not be triggered by MagR. Then, I am wondering how could Dr. Xie's MagR produce magnetoreception?
I guess the hat to be eaten has still not been eaten. Thus you should update Nature’s readers on this fact, when you follow-up on the controversy surrounding the MagR.
Sincerely, |
今日笔者终于看到在《自然》发表的新闻：
http://www.nature.com/news/compass-protein-attracts-heap-of-criticism-1.21773 Compass protein attracts heap of criticism Debate grows over a molecule implicated in animal navigation. by David Cyranoski 04 April 2017 |
下文为英文原文+ 中文翻译 （译者| 胡绍凡）：
几十年来，科学家们一直在思考一个问题——动物是如何使用地球磁场的弱信号来进行导航的。2015年，两个来自中国的团队先后发表文章，在文章中他们描述了一种在动物中发现的蛋白质具有能够感觉到磁场的功能。这引发了大家的兴趣，与此同时，也引发的一系列的争议。（For decades, scientists have wondered how animals can navigate huge distances using the weak signals of Earth’s magnetic field. So, interest was piqued in 2015 when two teams released papers in quick succession describing the functions of a protein found in animals that seemed to sense magnetic fields. But the claims have proved controversial, and questions have been piling up.）
北京大学生物物理学家谢灿和他的同事们报道了这一发现背后的科学事实。在《Nature Materials》的一篇论文中，他们声称动物细胞中的某种蛋白质形成了能够响应磁场的结构，因此可能有助于导航。同年，当时在北京清华大学的张生家领导的小组在《Science Bulletin》上发表了一篇文章，报道说这种蛋白质可以提供控制脑细胞的强大手段。（The basic science behind the discovery was reported by Xie Can, a biophysicist at Peking University in Beijing, and his colleagues. In a paper in Nature Materials, they claimed that a, and so might help in navigation. In the same year, a group led by Zhang Sheng-jia, then at Tsinghua University in Beijing, had published a paper in Science Bulletin reporting that the same protein could offer a powerful means of controlling brain cells.）
谢灿和张生家之间的学术争战长期以来一直肆虐，但越来越多的证据使得研究人员对这两个发现产生了怀疑。几位研究人员曾质疑谢灿的发现——蛋白质对磁场有反应。而上个月，谢灿在《Frontiers in Neural Circuits》撰写了一篇论文，反驳了张生家关于蛋白质能够控制细胞的潜力这一成果。（An academic battle has long raged between Xie and Zhang, but mounting evidence has cast doubt on both of their discoveries. Several researchers have challenged Xie’s claims that the protein reacts to magnetic fields. And last month, Xie co-authored a paper in Frontiers in Neural Circuits disputing Zhang’s work on the protein’s potential to magnetically control cells.）
处于争论中心的关键蛋白质的作用到底是什么？这带来了一系列的问题。在2015年论文中，谢灿和他的同事们报道了一种名为IscA1的蛋白质能够与另一种蛋白质Cry4形成复合物，并指出这解释了生物是如何识别磁场信号。研究发现，这种复合物含有铁原子，其赋予了蛋白质磁性，并且具有与施加的磁场对准的棒状形状。（This has all given rise to serious questions about the role of the molecule at the centre of the dispute. In their 2015 paper, Xie and his colleagues reported that a protein called IscA1 forms a complex with another protein, Cry4, that explains how organisms pick up magnetic cues. The study found that this complex incorporates iron atoms, which gives it magnetic properties, and has a rod-like shape that aligns with an applied magnetic field.）
而在两个月前，张生家描述了如何使用IscA1来控制蠕虫中的神经细胞和肌肉细胞。张生家了解到IscA1的特性，并从谢灿获得了IscA1样本，所以他的团队首先发布的事实造成了早期的紧张局势，并且很快成为一个激烈的争端。清华大学和北大的官员都要求《Science Bulletin》收回张生家的论文。同年11月份，张先生在清华失去职位，原因是什么官方没有解释。（Two months earlier, Zhang had described using IscA1 to control neurons and muscle cells in worms. Zhang learned of IscA1’s properties and obtained his IscA1 samples from Xie, and so the fact that his team published first was an early source of tension in what quickly became a . Officials from both Tsinghua University and Peking University asked Science Bulletin to retract Zhang’s paper. And that November, Zhang at Tsinghua — for reasons that the university did not specify.）
自那时开始，逐渐开始有研究人员怀疑谢灿的研究成果。德国奥登堡大学的地球物理学家迈克尔·温克洛夫（Michael Winklhofer）研究了谢灿的数据，发现复合体对地球场的感知非常微弱。加利福尼亚理工学院生物物理学家马库斯•梅斯特（Markus Meister）也提出了类似的疑惑。谢灿表示，该复合体只含有40个铁原子，但是，Meister认为，最小的已知天然存在的铁基磁体在极小的空间中就包含了100万个铁原子。（Doubts about Xie’s research have emerged since then. Michael Winklhofer, a geophysicist at the University of Oldenburg in Germany, examined Xie’s data and found that the complex would be too weakly magnetic to sense Earth’s field. Markus Meister, a biophysicist at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, raised similar concerns: Xie had reported that the complex would contain only 40 iron atoms, but Meister argues that the smallest known naturally occurring iron-based magnet has 1 million iron atoms packed into a smaller space.）
维也纳分子病理学研究所的神经科学家大卫·凯斯（David Keays）也对这项研究提出质疑。他表示IscA1和Cry4在许多组织中都可以发现，而如果它们作为磁场受体的一部分，那么人们只能期望它们被隔离在特定区域。他说：“感觉受体——无论是味道、听觉或光感受器——都倾向于具有限制性表达模式。”（David Keays, a neuroscientist at the Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna, has also questioned the study. He says that IscA1 and Cry4 are found throughout many tissues, whereas one would expect them to be sequestered in specific areas if they were functioning as parts of a magnetic-field receptor. “Sensory receptors, whether they be taste, hearing or photo-receptors, tend to have a restricted expression pattern,” he says.）
谢灿的合作者说，他们已经能够重现他的一些发现，同时谢灿对《Nature》的回信称坚持自己的成果。他认为IscA1的磁性能太弱，而Cry4可能会提高其效果。他说：“数据就是这样，而这可能会扩大我们对分子磁体的了解。”（Collaborators of Xie say that they have been able to reproduce some of his findings, and Xie told Nature that he stands by his results. He disputes the contention that the magnetic properties of IscA1 would be too weak by saying that Cry4 might boost its effect. “The data are what they are,” he says. “This may expand our knowledge of molecular magnets.”）
张生家的论文的更加具有挑战性。张生家声称已将IscA1转移到蠕虫神经元中，然后用磁场诱导细胞摄取钙。像这样操纵细胞基本功能的能力将可以作为神经科学家手中的一种强有力的工具，而它比使用光敏蛋白质控制活体动物神经元的光遗传技术的侵入性要弱的多。（The challenge to Zhang’s paper has been more pointed. Zhang claimed to have transferred IscA1 into worm neurons and then used a magnetic field to induce the cells to take up calcium. The ability to manipulate such a basic cell function could promise neuroscientists a powerful tool that is less invasive than opto-genetic techniques, which use light-sensitive proteins to control neurons in living animals.）
但在上个月，谢灿、清华大学神经科学家鲁白以及鲁白学生逢克亮报道：在各种条件下进行实验（其中包括与张生家几乎相同的实验条件），他们发现任何情况下钙流入细胞都没有变化。作者得出结论，张生家提出IscA1单独可能影响神经元活动的研究结果存在严重问题。（But last month, Xie, Tsinghua University neuroscientist Lu Bai and Lu’s student Pang Keliang reported carrying out experiments under various conditions, including some almost identical to those used by Zhang. They found no change in calcium flowing into cells in any of the cases. The authors conclude that the “findings cast serious doubts” that IscA1 alone could influence the activity of neurons, as Zhang had claimed.）
其他国家的几位科学家也告诉《Nature》，他们无法重复张生家的结果。张生家目前在深圳大学任职，《Nature》曾通过电子邮件和电话深圳大学，但他没有回应评论的要求。(《Neature Materials》与《Science Bulletin》没有要求张生家对争论进行评论）。【Several scientists outside China also told Nature that they could not reproduce Zhang’s results.Nature tried to reach Zhang through multiple e-mails and phone calls to Shenzhen University in China, where he now has a position, but he did not respond to requests for comment. (NeitherNature Materials, which is editorially independent from Nature’s news team, nor Science Bulletin responded to requests for comment about criticism of the papers.)】
与此同时，虽然对于谢灿的评论越来越激进，但是谢灿表示已经有了令人信服的数据显示IscA1复合体对磁场的反应，他计划在一年之内发表。 他说:“我们越来越有信心—— 100％肯定 ——我们是对的。”【Meanwhile, even as his critics become increasingly aggressive, Xie says he has convincing data that demonstrate the reaction of an IscA1 complex to a magnetic field, and that he plans to publish them within a year. “We are more and more confident — 100% sure — that we are right about this,” he says.】
因为笔者在外旅游，不便过多细致介绍这篇新闻。大家先看看。笔者玩好后再接力。