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丘小庆论文中质谱分析数据的问题
——致美国《科学》杂志的信

（原文发表于《科学》7月28日，方舟子翻译）

　　我想写信说明我本人对郝炘的文章《（四川）大学澄清中国生物物理学家所
受的学术不端指控》(News of the Week, 28 Apr., p. 511)的看法。

　　在4月19日，郝要求就四川大学丘小庆被指控造假一事对我进行采访。据郝
说，丘告诉她我为他的课题做的质谱分析验证了他的假说，即在蛋白质
pheromonicin（译按：即争议中的新型抗菌肽）中存在一个“硫代内酯环”。郝
要求我用通俗的语言向她解释我做的实验和该环的意义。郝的电子邮件使我注意
到丘的论文《一种作为新型靶向性、特异性抗生素的杀菌工程多肽》（译按：即
争议中的《自然·生物技术》论文）。在阅读该论文时，我发现来自液体层析质
谱分析的数据被用于证明在pheromonicin中存在硫代内酯环。我告诉郝，我在
2003年根据丘的要求做了质谱分析，但是我所做的分析结果并不能支持上述文章
的结论。

　　如丘所言，他在2003年送我样品的目的是为了证明在pheromonicin中存在硫
代内酯环。根据我的记忆和保存下来的文件，在质谱测量的精确度之内，他的样
品中并不含有所预测的多肽质量的多肽，或任何与pheromonicin的胰蛋白酶解多
肽片段相关的质量。我早在2003年7月就已告知丘这一结论。我不知道丘从哪里
得到他的论文中的质谱分析数据。不管怎样，我清清楚楚地向郝解释说，该论文
中的质谱分析数据有很高的质谱测量误差，即使它们是在质谱分析中观测到的，
也不应该在论文中使用。当然，最终的证明将是能够根据丘的步骤重复生产出有
功能的多肽。


邓海腾
洛克菲勒大学蛋白质组资源中心

Science 28 July 2006:
Vol. 313. no. 5786, p. 440
DOI: 10.1126/science.313.5786.440b
Prev | Table of Contents | Next

Letters

Questions About Mass Spectrometry Data

I am writing to express my personal concerns about Hao Xin's article 
"University clears Chinese biophysicist of misconduct" (News of the 
Week, 28 Apr., p. 511).
On 19 April, Hao sent me an interview request regarding an alleged 
misconduct case against Xiao-Qing Qiu of Sichuan University. According 
to Hao, Qiu had told her that the mass spectrometric analysis (MS) I 
did for his project verified his hypothesis that there was a 
"thiolactone ring" present in the protein pheromonicin. Hao asked me 
to explain to her in lay terms what I did and what the significance of 
this ring was. Hao's email brought to my attention Qiu's paper, "An 
engineered multidomain bactericidal peptide as a model for targeted 
antibiotics against specific bacteria" (1). Reading the paper, I found 
that data from liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS) 
analysis were used to confirm the presence of the thiolactone ring in 
pheromonicin (p. 1481). I told Hao that I performed an MS analysis for 
Qiu at his request in 2003, but the results of the analysis I 
performed do not support the findings of the above-referenced article.

Qiu's stated interest with regard to the sample he provided to me in 
2003 was, as above, in confirming the presence of the thiolactone ring 
in pheromonicin. On the basis of my memory and saved documents, his 
samples did not contain peptides at the predicted peptide masses 
within the mass measurement accuracy of the instrument or any masses 
matching the tryptic peptides of pheromonicin. I informed Qiu of this 
finding in early July of 2003. I do not know how Qiu obtained the MS 
data for his paper. However, I explained explicitly to Hao that the MS 
data presented in the paper have high mass measurement errors and 
should not have been used in the paper even if they were observed in 
mass spectra. The ultimate proof, of course, will be the reproducible 
production of the functional polypeptide based on Qiu's protocol.

Haiteng Deng
The Proteomics Resource Center
The Rockefeller University
1230 York Avenue
New York, NY 10021, USA
E-mail: dengh@rockefeller.edu

Reference

X.-Q. Qiu, Nat. Biotechnol. 21, 1480 (2003). 

(XYS20060730)

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