Flórez-Vargas Oscar, Bramhall Michael, Noyes Harry, Cruickshank Sheena, Stevens Robert, Brass Andy
Bio-health Informatics Group, School of Computer Science, University of Manchester, Manchester, United Kingdom.
School of Biological Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool, United Kingdom.
PLoS One. 2014 Jul 30;9(7):e101131. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0101131. eCollection 2014.
There is a growing concern both inside and outside the scientific community over the lack of reproducibility of experiments. The depth and detail of reported methods are critical to the reproducibility of findings, but also for making it possible to compare and integrate data from different studies. In this study, we evaluated in detail the methods reporting in a comprehensive set of trypanosomiasis experiments that should enable valid reproduction, integration and comparison of research findings. We evaluated a subset of other parasitic (Leishmania, Toxoplasma, Plasmodium, Trichuris and Schistosoma) and non-parasitic (Mycobacterium) experimental infections in order to compare the quality of method reporting more generally. A systematic review using PubMed (2000-2012) of all publications describing gene expression in cells and animals infected with Trypanosoma spp was undertaken based on PRISMA guidelines; 23 papers were identified and included. We defined a checklist of essential parameters that should be reported and have scored the number of those parameters that are reported for each publication. Bibliometric parameters (impact factor, citations and h-index) were used to look for association between Journal and Author status and the quality of method reporting. Trichuriasis experiments achieved the highest scores and included the only paper to score 100% in all criteria. The mean of scores achieved by Trypanosoma articles through the checklist was 65.5% (range 32-90%). Bibliometric parameters were not correlated with the quality of method reporting (Spearman's rank correlation coefficient <-0.5; p>0.05). Our results indicate that the quality of methods reporting in experimental parasitology is a cause for concern and it has not improved over time, despite there being evidence that most of the assessed parameters do influence the results. We propose that our set of parameters be used as guidelines to improve the quality of the reporting of experimental infection models as a pre-requisite for integrating and comparing sets of data.
科学界内外对实验缺乏可重复性的担忧日益加剧。报告方法的深度和细节对于研究结果的可重复性至关重要，同时对于比较和整合来自不同研究的数据也至关重要。在本研究中，我们详细评估了一组全面的锥虫病实验中报告的方法，这些实验应能实现研究结果的有效再现、整合和比较。我们评估了其他寄生虫（利什曼原虫、弓形虫、疟原虫、鞭虫和血吸虫）和非寄生虫（分枝杆菌）实验性感染的一个子集，以便更全面地比较方法报告的质量。根据PRISMA指南，对PubMed（2000 - 2012年）上所有描述锥虫属感染的细胞和动物中基因表达的出版物进行了系统综述；共识别并纳入了23篇论文。我们定义了一份应报告的基本参数清单，并对每篇出版物报告的这些参数数量进行了评分。使用文献计量学参数（影响因子、引用次数和h指数）来寻找期刊和作者地位与方法报告质量之间的关联。鞭虫病实验得分最高，其中唯一一篇论文在所有标准下得分均为100%。通过清单对锥虫属文章获得的分数均值为65.5%（范围32 - 90%）。文献计量学参数与方法报告质量不相关（斯皮尔曼等级相关系数< - 0.5；p>0.05）。我们的结果表明，实验寄生虫学中方法报告的质量令人担忧，并且尽管有证据表明大多数评估参数确实会影响结果，但随着时间推移并没有改善。我们建议将我们的参数集用作指导方针，以提高实验感染模型报告的质量，作为整合和比较数据集的先决条件。
