Tokyo — A group of Japanese scientists led by a researcher at Osaka University, Iichiro Shimomura, has agreed to retract a paper from Science magazine, ending a dispute that at one stage seemed to be heading for the courtroom. Science said it felt a retraction was “the appropriate course of action” after working with Mr. Shimomura and his co-authors to construct a statement that “all could agree on.”

The paper, “Visfatin: A Protein Secreted by Visceral Fat That Mimics the Effects of Insulin,” was published by Science in January 2005. In June of this year, the university told Professor Shimomura, a specialist in metabolic medicine, to withdraw the article, which it said contained “questionable points” based on an investigation by the university medical school’s Committee for Research Integrity.

Amid allegations of dirty tricks and harassment by senior colleagues, Mr. Shimomura threatened legal action against the university, calling the charges “trumped up.” But this week he accepted that the paper contained some flaws, including a mismatched caption, while maintaining that it was basically sound.

“Science agreed that there was no falsification or misconduct involved,” he said in a telephone interview from Osaka. “But it would have been more appropriate to have released the results only after they were immune from criticism.”

Science’s statement did not explain the reasons for retracting the paper but said it had seen the research-integrity committee’s report. That report has not been made public.

The scientists’ paper reported the discovery of a new hormone released from fat tissue that mimicked some of the qualities of insulin. —David McNeill