Integrity Review: 'Butyrate Suppresses Glucose Metabolism of Colorectal Cancer Cells via GPR109a-AKT Signaling Pathway and Enhances Chemotherapy'

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

This review examines the paper by Hong-Wei Geng et al. published in Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences (DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2021.634874). The verdict is confirmed misconduct (实锤). Six independent issues were identified. (1) Image reuse across Figures 1C, 2A, 3D, and 4A: β-actin loading controls and target bands for HCT116 and LoVo cells appear visually identical despite different cell lines and treatments. (2) Image splicing in Figure 2E, where a visible vertical black line separates GPR109a lanes. (3) A direct contradiction between Methods (CE-TOFMS) and Figure 3A legend (LC-MS/MS). (4) Copy-paste artifacts in the Western Blotting Methods section, where line numbers '274' and '275' appear inside the RIPA buffer recipe. (5) Suspiciously uniform error bars in qPCR data (Figures 1B, 1D). (6) Forced insertion of COVID-19 discussion that is unsupported by the study design. Confidence is high for issues 1, 2, 3, and 4; moderate for issues 5 and 6.

Verdict

Confirmed (🔴 实锤). Multiple independent indicators of data fabrication and methodological irregularities were identified. The cumulative pattern—duplicate loading controls, spliced blots, contradictory instrument descriptions, and verbatim copy-paste of line numbers—exceeds what is plausibly attributable to sloppiness alone.

Key findings

Duplicate loading controls / image reuse (🔴): β-actin bands for HCT116 and LoVo in Figures 1C, 2A, and 3D share near-identical background texture, band shape, and edge blur; Figure 4A shows unnatural crop boundaries for G6PD.
Blot splicing (🔴): Figure 2E (GPR109a Western blot) contains a clear vertical black dividing line between lanes, consistent with undisclosed lane reassembly.
Methods–figure contradiction (🟠): Methods describe CE-TOFMS (Human Metabolome Technologies), while the Figure 3A legend states metabolites were measured by LC-MS/MS—two fundamentally different platforms.
Copy-paste artifact (🔴): The RIPA buffer recipe in Materials and Methods contains the stray numerals '274' and '275', evidently line numbers pasted from a PDF/Word source.
Suspicious error-bar uniformity (🟠): qPCR bars for GLUT1–GLUT5 in Figures 1B and 1D show implausibly uniform error-bar lengths across independent genes.
Forced COVID-19 framing (🟡): The Introduction and Conclusion insert pandemic commentary without methodological basis, suggesting motive-driven narrative padding.

Evidence highlights

DOI: 10.3389/fmolb.2021.634874
Authors: Hong-Wei Geng, Feng-Yi Yin, Zhi-Fa Zhang, Xu Gong, Yun Yang
Journal/year: Frontiers in Molecular Biosciences, 2021
Quoted RIPA recipe containing line numbers: "RIPA buffer (50 mM Tris pH 8, 150 mM NaCl, 1% NP-40, 0.5% deoxycholic acid, 274 and 0.1% SDS) supplemented with protease and phosphatase inhibitors (1 mM PMSF, 5μg/ml 275 leupeptin, 2μg/ml aprotinin, 1 mM EDTA, 10 mM NaF, and 1 mM NaVO4)"
Methods state metabolites "were analyzed using a capillary electrophoresis (CE)-connected ESI-TOFMS system" and "analyzed using CE-TOFMS (Human Metabolome Technologies)"
Figure 3A legend states metabolites "were measured by liquid chromatograph-mass spectrometer/mass spectrometer (LC-MS/MS)"
Figures flagged for image issues: 1C, 2A, 2E, 3D, 4A
Figures flagged for statistical issues: 1B, 1D

Notes

Findings are based on visual inspection of the published PDF and internal text cross-referencing. Image similarity assessments rely on visual analysis and have not been verified by forensic tools (e.g., forensic watermarking or pixel-level forensics). The error-bar uniformity analysis (Finding 5) is suggestive but not conclusive without raw Ct values. Institution affiliation (Beihang University) is mentioned in the original report; this could not be independently re-verified here. Final adjudication of misconduct requires institutional or publisher investigation.