ArticlePloS one2017
The ghosts of HeLa: How cell line misidentification contaminates the scientific literature.
Article in PloS one, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 87 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
87 citing papers in PubMed.
- Reproducibility in biomedical research.Nature medicine · 2026Review
- CellBouncer, a unified toolkit for single-cell demultiplexing and ambient RNA analysis, reveals hominid mitochondrial incompatibilities.Cell genomics · 2026Article
- A Biomedical Researcher's Guide for Analyzing Short Tandem Repeat (STR) Genotypes of Human Cell Lines and in Vitro Tissue Samples Using Three Standard Authentication Algorithms.Current protocols · 2026Article
- A decade-long retrospective analysis of cell line authentication in China using over 10,000 samples.Communications biology · 2026Article
- Article
- Applications and limitations of pluripotent stem cell-derived liver organoids.Chinese medical journal · 2026Review
- The Chick Embryo Chorioallantoic Membrane Assay as a Short-Term Exploratory Model for Cervical Cancer Research.Life (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Article
- Genetic Insights into the Economic Toll of Cell Line Misidentification: A Comprehensive Review.Medical sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Anti-cancer Potential of Scopoletin Derivatives Across Diverse Cancer Cell Lines: A Comprehensive Review.Current drug discovery technologies · 2026Review
- Cell line authentication: a commercial service provider perspective.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2026Article
- Neuroglobin and Cytoglobin in Mammalian Nervous Systems: About Distribution, Regulation, Function, and Some Open Questions.Brain sciences · 2025Review
- Misidentified cell lines: failures of peer review, varying journal responses to misidentification inquiries, and strategies for safeguarding biomedical research.Research integrity and peer review · 2025Article
- Cell line authentication and validation is a key requirement forJournal of cell communication and signaling · 2025Article
- Article
- Integrated data-driven biotechnology research environments.Database : the journal of biological databases and curation · 2025Review
- Decoding HuH-7: a comprehensive genetic and molecular portrait of a widely used hepatocellular carcinoma model.Frontiers in cell and developmental biology · 2025Article
- A risk-based approach can guide safe cell line development and cell banking for scaled-up cultivated meat production.Nature food · 2025Review
- Article
- STRprofiler: efficient comparisons of short tandem repeat profiles for biomedical model authentication.Bioinformatics (Oxford, England) · 2024Article
- Misspellings or "miscellings"-Non-verifiable and unknown cell lines in cancer research publications.International journal of cancer · 2024Article
27 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
2 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
While problems with cell line misidentification have been known for decades, an unknown number of published papers remains in circulation reporting on the wrong cells without warning or correction. Here we attempt to make a conservative estimate of this 'contaminated' literature. We found 32,755 articles reporting on research with misidentified cells, in turn cited by an estimated half a million other papers. The contamination of the literature is not decreasing over time and is anything but restricted to countries in the periphery of global science. The decades-old and often contentious attempts to stop misidentification of cell lines have proven to be insufficient. The contamination of the literature calls for a fair and reasonable notification system, warning users and readers to interpret these papers with appropriate care.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.