Corrigendum to: T cell apoptosis at the maternal-fetal interface in early human pregnancy, involvement of galectin-1.- A correction with an important twist.

Abstract

We previously published a paper reporting the apoptotic nature of first trimester human decidual T cells (Kopcow et al 2008). New experiments and data re-analysis produced confirmatory, negative and contradictory results. We had previously shown by TUNEL and sub diploid DNA content analysis (SD) that ex-vivo decidual T cells, isolated either as CD3+ cells or as CD4+/8+ cells, are apoptotic and that the level of apoptosis differs significantly from peripheral blood T cells isolated in a similar way. Data re-examination including data points previously unintentionally ignored results in indetermination in the dataset structure with contradictory statistical significance results between TUNEL and SD and the two isolation approaches. Furthermore, data disaggregation and granular examination reveals discrepant TUNEL and SD readings within individual samples. We have previously shown that decidual CD3+ lymphocytes stain brighter with AnnexinV -Fitc than peripheral blood T cells and other decidual lympohocyte populations. Independent repetitions with modified and alternative isolation protocols using different flow cytometry equipment in the hands of another researcher failed to reproduce those results, while side by side repetition under the published conditions as well as under the alternative isolation protocol reproduced the published pattern when samples were ran in the same equipment used for the publication. A reflection on these results proposes to understand the scientific paper as one among other possible constructed narratives.