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Citation network analysis of retractions in molecular biology field

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Abstract

Based on the extracted information of retracted papers from the Retraction Watch Database and the citation information of these papers from the Web of Science, we uncovered the complex relationships of retracted papers in the molecular biology domain via a citation network. The basic characteristics (i.e., time and spatial patterns, reasons, publishers) of the retracted articles were studied. Citation network analysis, including community detection and text analysis, was carried out. Our main findings are as follows: (1) The overall number of retractions in this field has been increasing over time, and these retractions have been mainly in China and the USA. (2) Most retracted papers were for both “scientific error” and “misconduct” reasons. Among the 13 reasons given, errors in the data and images accounted for the largest proportion. (3) Community structure is obvious in the citation network we constructed. In communities with five or more nodes, the average self-citation rate account for 76%. In the three largest communities 1, 2, and 3, the self-citation rate are respectively 99%, 100% and 77%. In community 6, the self-catition rate is 17%. Other papers from different teams were published in the Journal of Cellular Biochemistry (4 papers). Tumor Biology (3 papers) or Febs Letters (1 paper). The self-citation rate of community 5 is 60.00%. Most papers are from Alfredo Fusco’s team, and other ten papers are almost published in PLoS ONE. (4) The coupling relationship between citing-cited retraction reasons was revealed. Retractions and their citations were more likely to be retracted for the same reason. Most of the citing-cited papers from paper mills were published by the same publisher and even the same journal. (5) PI3K (an enzyme), WNT (a protein) and lncRNAs have recently been the major topics of retractions.

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Funding

This research is supported by grants from the National Key Research and Development Program of China (2022YFC2105400), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No.42101176), Academic Divisions of the Chinese Academy of Sciences (E4291402), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (ZY2432) and the Funds for First-class Discipline Construction (XK1802-5).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Economics and Management, Beijing University of Chemical Technology, Beijing, 100029, China

    Sida Feng

  2. National Science Library, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100190, China

    Lingzi Feng, Fang Han, Yanqing Ren, Lixue Wang & Junpeng Yuan

  3. Hebei Finance University, Baoding, 071000, China

    Ye Zhang

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  1. Sida Feng
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  2. Lingzi Feng
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Contributions

Conceptualization: SF, FH; Data curation: LW, LF; Network Analysis: SF, FH; Methodology: SF, FH, LF, YR; Investigation: SF, FH; Writing—original draft: SF, FH; Visualization: SF, FH; Supervision: JY, FH, YR; Writing—Reviewing and Editing: YZ, SF, FH; Funding acquisition: SF, JY.

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Correspondence to Fang Han.

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Feng, S., Feng, L., Han, F. et al. Citation network analysis of retractions in molecular biology field. Scientometrics 129, 4795–4817 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11192-024-05101-4

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