Expression of concern: Natural copy number variation of tandemly repeated regulatory SNORD RNAs leads to individual phenotypic differences in mice

Keshavarz, M., Savriama, Y., Refki, P., Reeves, R. G., & Tautz, D. (2021). Natural copy number variation of tandemly repeated regulatory SNORD RNAs leads to individual phenotypic differences in mice. Molecular Ecology, 30, 4708-4722. https://doi.org/10.1111/mec.16076 This expression of concern is for the above article, published online on 12 July 2021 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), and has been published by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Loren Rieseberg and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. The expression of concern follows an internal investigation by the Max-Planck Society, which found a number of inconsistencies in the supporting information of the article, later also confirmed by the authors: Incorrect sex assignment for a set of mouse IDs (reported in Table S1, SNORD copy numbers) Inconsistencies in the ddPCR data that were used to determine SNORD copy number variation (reported in Tables S1, S4 and S6): Over-representation of certain values for SD, incorrect calculation of averages and SD values (Table S1, SNORD copy numbers). SNORD115 and SNORD116 copy numbers differed between columns C and I and columns D and J, respectively, despite having been determined only once (Table S4, other CNVs). Incorrect mouse IDs for family VI and VIII (Table S6, family study). Replicate three for SNORD115 and SNORD116 determination is often identical to the average (Table S6, family study). D.T. and M.K. could not retrieve the relevant raw data for the published ddPCR experiments that would have allowed to resolve the inconsistencies based on a re-analysis. Consequently, it cannot be excluded that these irregularities affect the reproducibility of the study and the conclusions that are based on these data. Therefore, the journal has decided to issue an expression of concern to inform and alert the readers. The transcriptome analyses and morphometric data presented in the article remain valid, including the corresponding original data depositions at ENA (accession number PRJEB29473) and Zenodo (record 4750371). The issues with the incorrect sex assignment (Table S1) and the erroneous mouse IDs (Table S6) were resolved, the corrected Tables S1 and S6 are provided in the updated Supporting Information.