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Do you believe this: a paper from Nature - (Jun/29/2005 )

I was surprised by this paper (see below) published today in Nature.

It tells me two things:

1) To publish a paper in top rated journals, you don't necessarily need to have fancy methodology. In this paper, only immunostaining was used.

2) To publish a paper in top rated journals, have some big big names in your paper, or best, have them as the correspoding author.

Correct me if I am wrong FIVE years later if you still REMEMBER this paper.

P.


http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v435/...ature03672.html

Global histone modification patterns predict risk of prostate cancer recurrence

David B. Seligson 1,5, Steve Horvath 2,3,5, Tao Shi 2,3, Hong Yu 1, Sheila Tze1, Michael Grunstein4 and Siavash K. Kurdistani4

1. Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
2. Department of Human Genetics, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
3. Department of Biostatistics, School of Public Health, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095, USA
4. Department of Biological Chemistry, David Geffen School of Medicine, University of California, Los Angeles, California 90095,

Aberrations in post-translational modifications of histones have been shown to occur in cancer cells but only at individual promoters1; they have not been related to clinical outcome. Other than being targeted to promoters, modifications of histones, such as acetylation and methylation of lysine and arginine residues, also occur over large regions of chromatin including coding regions and non-promoter sequences, which are referred to as global histone modifications2. Here we show that changes in global levels of individual histone modifications are also associated with cancer and that these changes are predictive of clinical outcome. Through immunohistochemical staining of primary prostatectomy tissue samples, we determined the percentage of cells that stained for the histone acetylation and dimethylation of five residues in histones H3 and H4. Grouping of samples with similar patterns of modifications identified two disease subtypes with distinct risks of tumour recurrence in patients with low-grade prostate cancer. These histone modification patterns were predictors of outcome independently of tumour stage, preoperative prostate-specific antigen levels, and capsule invasion. Thus, widespread changes in specific histone modifications indicate previously undescribed molecular heterogeneity in prostate cancer and might underlie the broad range of clinical behaviour in cancer patients.

-paulina-

nope, nothing really suprising. i remember reading a book with an intro by kary mullis. apparently, when he was a student, after a psychedelic night out, he wrote a paper about what he thought of the universe and stars (pretty colours), submitted it to nature (i think) and it was accepted straight away. years later, he came up with PCR, thought hey this could be something, submitted it to nature.... was rejected, submitted it to another well known/respected journal.... rejected.
hmmmmmmm

-vetticus3-

It certainly makes you wonder why and how certain work gets published in first rate journals.

There is certainly an air of eliteness in the club of high impact journals, if you nor your PI are in this club, there isn't much chance for you to get published.

I believe I have some nice results that would be relavant to the field I am in, but the top rate journals wouldn't have a bar of it......didn't even get to peer review!!!

It seems a combination of big names on the paper and blind luck to get in such journals. However once in, you are set for the rest of your publishing career!

Such is the world of publish or perish.

Nick

-methylnick-

Well, firstly, methodology has nothing to do with important findings. You can use the most basic and well established techniques to find some of the most important and novel discoveries. So, the first point is completely unrelated to why papers get published in good journals. Secondly, the fact that you can not understand the significance of an article and the underlying reasons why it is in such a prominent journal, does not mean that it's successful acceptance to Nature is solely based on who you have as corresponding author. Obviously, one should think to themselves... "maybe I'm missing the point", instead of saying "they are just all part of the big boy's club". Although I do believe that there are some scientists who get their less-than-stellar papers into respectable journals because of their connections to big names, for the most part, big names become big because of their track record. These investigators have repeated over the years demonstrated highly critical and thorough scientific work, which lend them some level of credibility in the field. Thus, there certainly is trust that is freely given to particular names... even when the work of that investigator has gone downhill.

As for this paper that you've singled out, I think it has tremendous significance. In fact, don't be surprised if you start to see companies use epigenetic diagnostics as a tool for prognosis, as well as a method for determining treatment regiments for cancer patients. When your loved one's chances of surviving breast cancer increases 40% because the doctors were able to use acetylation and methylation staining to determine what drugs would be most effective for them, you won't think this paper should be so easily dismissed.

As for scientists who try to submit papers to high impact journals, only to see them rejected without even peer review, it is usually not what you claim that is seen as insignificant, but rather the experiments that support these claims. Anyone can say they've found the cure for cancer, but to actually show and prove that is entirely a different story. I often find that people in my lab are not critical enough about their findings (ie. trying to answer the same problem multiple ways to ensure that what they see is real), do not come up with alternative interpretations of the data, and show several experiments which all point to only one possible conclusion. Remember, everyone thinks that their work is significant and important, so... prove it.

-awang-