Integrity review report: Sun et al., A Testis-Specific Aralkylamine N-Acetyltransferase Regulates Dimorphic Sperm Function and Male Fertility in Moths (Advanced Science, DOI 10.1002/advs.202516374)

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

This integrity review reports two confirmed textual inconsistencies and one limitation. (1) In the Experimental Section (§4.10 Immunofluorescence Staining), the Methods state that a polyclonal antiserum was raised in rabbits, but the secondary antibody is described as donkey anti-mouse IgG-Alexa Fluor 555; a rabbit primary cannot be detected by an anti-mouse secondary, indicating a likely copy-paste error that would invalidate the Figure 6 IF localisation. (2) In Figure 5I caption, statistical significance is annotated as four asterisks ('****') but defined as p < 0.001, whereas the same paper elsewhere correctly uses '****' for p < 0.0001, reflecting an inconsistent asterisk convention. (3) No raw high-resolution images were available, so visual reuse, splicing, or background-noise analyses could not be performed. Overall verdict: highly suspicious due to a fatal antibody-species mismatch in Methods. Confidence is high for findings 1–2; image-based checks remain inconclusive.

Verdict

🟠 Highly suspicious. A methodological inconsistency in the immunofluorescence procedure (rabbit primary paired with anti-mouse secondary) and a mis-aligned significance-symbol legend indicate poor quality control and likely copy-paste drafting errors. Visual image-integrity analyses could not be executed because raw image files were not available.

Key findings

Antibody host / secondary species mismatch (severe): Methods describe a rabbit polyclonal antiserum but then specify donkey anti-mouse IgG as the secondary antibody; if executed as written, no specific IF signal would be expected.
Statistical legend inconsistency (moderate): Figure 5I caption pairs '**' with p < 0.001, while Figures 2 and 4 in the same paper correctly use '' for p < 0.0001.

Detection limitation: Image-reuse, splicing, and background-noise analyses were not performed owing to lack of pixel-level inputs.
Evidence highlights

§4.10 Immunofluorescence Staining text: "A polyclonal antiserum was produced in rabbits using the C-terminal peptide sequence..." followed by "secondary antibody (donkey anti-mouse IgG conjugated to Alexa Fluor 555, 1:500)."

Figure 5I caption: "Mann–Whitney U test; p < 0.001." In Figures 2 and 4 the paper elsewhere uses the standard GraphPad convention where '' denotes p < 0.0001 and '*' denotes p < 0.001.
The robust IF signal shown in Figure 6 (LTNAT localisation along the sperm tail) contradicts the as-written Methods, suggesting either an unreported species correction in the actual experiment or a copy-paste artefact in the manuscript.
DOI: 10.1002/advs.202516374.

Notes

The antibody mismatch is a textual / methodological defect; it does not by itself prove data fabrication, but it casts doubt on the IF figures until the authors clarify the actual antibody used and provide original uncropped images and staining controls.
The asterisk inconsistency is a low-severity editorial error but is consistent with hasty figure assembly.
No claim of image duplication or splicing is made here; such analyses require the original high-resolution figure files and should be requested from the corresponding authors or the journal.
The report is an AI-assisted literature-integrity screening output and does not constitute a formal finding of misconduct.