Journals publishing mouse models with no phenotype

[BSA2011]

Hi all,

We made a knockout mouse line, but unfortunately didn’t find any phenotype. We want to publish our negative data anyway and close this project. Would you suggest which journals we should go?

I heard that Genesis may accept this kind of study. Any other suggestions are so much appreciated. Thank you!

B

[Crucible]

wiki says

Often, the term "phenotype" is incorrectly used as a shorthand to indicate phenotypical changes observed in mutated organisms (most often in connection with knockout mice).[5]

If you don't mind me asking , what reason is there for publishing negative results ? Does it answer a question ?

[Brittney]

Hi all,

We made a knockout mouse line, but unfortunately didn’t find any phenotype. We want to publish our negative data anyway and close this project. Would you suggest which journals we should go?

I heard that Genesis may accept this kind of study. Any other suggestions are so much appreciated. Thank you!

B

im sorry i don't know much im guessing your older cause lol i have never did any of this because i am a dumb freshman LOL

[Brittney]

wouldn't the mouse die cause basicly the mouse had no DNA right? *confused*

[Gavin]

Negative results are results. If something is worth knowing, it's worth publishing. If the answer to a question is no, its still an answer. To BSA2011, I cannot recommend a journal, but I encourage you to try to publish your findings. Your results may be useful to someone in your field.

[Crucible]

Negative results are results. If something is worth knowing, it's worth publishing. If the answer to a question is no, its still an answer. To BSA2011, I cannot recommend a journal, but I encourage you to try to publish your findings. Your results may be useful to someone in your field.

If I look under a lamppost for my lost keys, and the results are negative, I should publish in a journal ?
Surely there must be a need for better justification for publication, than that alone ?

Isn't there specialized databases to deposit such info into ?

[JackBean]

wouldn't the mouse die cause basicly the mouse had no DNA right? *confused*

phenotype is not DNA. If it didn't have DNA, it wouldn't exist.

[JackBean]

Crucible: if you found your keys under a lamppost, would you publish it in a journal? I guess not. And even if you tried, it wouldn't be (hopefully) accepted.
However, negative results in science are still valid results. If will I look, whether some gene is upregulated after salt stress and it won't be, is it worth publishing? Of course it is, because even this can tell us something. Also, your negative results may prevent someone else from doing the same thing and loosing time and money.

BTW if you want to cite wikipedia, maybe add the link, since wikipedia is not one page

[Crucible]

Crucible: if you found your keys under a lamppost, would you publish it in a journal? I guess not. And even if you tried, it wouldn't be (hopefully) accepted.
However, negative results in science are still valid results. If will I look, whether some gene is upregulated after salt stress and it won't be, is it worth publishing? Of course it is, because even this can tell us something. Also, your negative results may prevent someone else from doing the same thing and loosing time and money.

BTW if you want to cite wikipedia, maybe add the link, since wikipedia is not one page

I'm under the impression that journals generally need something that tells us something worth taking note of.
That is, results of very minor apparent importance, are not publishable

[JackBean]

of course, you won't publish in single article, only and nothing else than that one gene didn't respond to salt stress (from my example above), but similarly you won't publish, only and nothing else than that the gene was upregulated after salt treatment. You need little larger story to tell for both positive and negative results.

[Crucible]

of course, you won't publish in single article, only and nothing else than that one gene didn't respond to salt stress (from my example above), but similarly you won't publish, only and nothing else than that the gene was upregulated after salt treatment. You need little larger story to tell for both positive and negative results.

Is there to be an immediate story as large, for negative results, though ? It would seem only in the case where negative results could call into question, or refute, some widely held notion.

[jonmoulton]

As Jack pointed out earlier, publication of negative results can save time and money by warning other groups that a particular experiment is unlikely to produce useful results. There are two kinds of experiments that are scientifically very useful but are usually tough to publish: experiments with negative results and confirmatory repetition of reported results. Both are important to move scientific investigation forward.

Without publication of negative results, other labs are doomed to replicate fruitless experiments.

Without publication of confirmatory repetition, many labs may undertake repetition to confirm another lab's result before moving forward (as you can't blindly trust everything that's published); with published confirmations, less labs are compelled to repeat the earlier work in order to be confident of the results.

In either of these cases, time and money is saved and can be used instead to explore new experiments.