A bibliometric assessment of the incidence of <i>Eszett</i> (ẞ; ß)-catenin and  <i>Eszett</i> (ẞ; ß)-glucuronidase in the indexed literature

Purpose Two major databases were assessed for the existence of two linguistic errors. In particular, when the Greek letter beta (β) is replaced (accidently or otherwise) by the German letter Eszett (ß), due to their visual similarity, new and nonexistent variants of scientific terms arise, such as Eszett-catenin and Eszett-glucuronidase, which are false positives of β-catenin and β-glucuronidase, respectively. Readers might visually interpret these beta-like symbols as β, and even though their presence in the literature likely does not alter the scientific meaning of the sentences in which they are found, they are linguistic errors nonetheless, akin to spelling errors. Design/methodology/approach This study aimed to bibliometrically appreciate the incidence of these two variants (Eszett-catenin and Eszett-glucuronidase) in indexed literature. To achieve this, the Web of Science Core Collection and Scopus were sourced on 9th June 2025. Findings A total of 483 and 813 results for “ß-catenin,” and 57 and 278 results for “ß-glucuronidase,” respectively were discovered. In contrast, a search for the veritable forms “β-catenin” and “β-glucuronidase” retrieved 66,320 and 15,315 results in WoS and 67,239 and 25,590 results in Scopus. Originality/value Even though these typographic errors are relatively rare, their presence in leading journals and important research fields indicates that indexing and editorial processes have failed to detect them. This study highlights the need for improved quality control of documents in scientific publishing and for greater awareness of how small typographic errors can affect metadata integrity as well as information retrieval.