Geng Fraud Detection Report: Arabidopsis BRANCHED1 Acts as an Integrator of Branching Signals within Axillary Buds (The Plant Cell, 2007)

Academic fraud report · Geng Detector

Summary

Automated AI-assisted integrity screening rated this 2007 The Plant Cell paper (DOI: 10.1105/tpc.106.048934; Aguilar-Martínez, Poza-Carrión, Cubas) as 'highly suspicious' pending verification with original data. Key concerns: (1) visually near-identical qPCR error bars across tissues and genotypes in Figures 1E, 6A/6B, despite the stated three biological replicates; (2) suspected duplicated error bars across genes (BRC1 vs DRM1) in the time-course Figure 7D (four replicates stated); (3) programmatic image forensics flagged 6 copy-move signals across 8 page images (e.g., img-003, offset (0,32), 58 block pairs) and 7 noise-variance anomalies (img-003 CV=1.415), with no document-internal benign explanation. Mitigating factors: the paper reports negative results (P < 0.2782), detailed methods, and a coherent timeline. Visual findings cannot be quantitatively verified without raw data; benign explanations for forensic signals remain speculative. Note: the auto-generated Bayesian synthesis (posterior ≥99.9%, BF=6.13e+7) assumes conditional independence and likely overstates certainty. Recommended: request raw Ct values and original images; formal allegation not advised before verification.

Verdict

Highly suspicious (requires original data for confirmation) — an intermediate automated rating. The paper shows positive credibility indicators (transparent reporting of non-significant results such as P < 0.2782, detailed methodology, coherent timeline), but unexplained qPCR error-bar uniformity and batch image-forensics signals could not be cleared and warrant verification against raw data. This is not a finding of misconduct.

Key findings

Figure 1E, 6A, 6B (🟠): qPCR error bars appear near-identical in length across tissues and genotypes, despite captions stating "Error bars represent SE from three biological replicates." Normalization (2^-ΔΔCT) and small n=3 sampling are candidate benign explanations but do not positively account for fully uniform SEs.
Figure 7D (🟡): Error bars for BRC1 and DRM1 across time points (0h, 1h, 6h, etc.) look copy-pasted; the caption states "Error bars represent the SE from four biological replicate experiments." No methodological basis for cross-gene SE identity is given.
Programmatic image forensics (🟠): Across 8 page images (img-000 to img-007), 6 copy-move signals and 7 noise-variance anomalies were detected, e.g., same-offset block matches at img-002 (0,32), 20 pairs; img-003 (0,32), 58 pairs; img-004 (0,32), 23 pairs; img-000 (0,80), 13 pairs; img-005 (208,0), 11 pairs; img-007 (88,0), 18 pairs; noise CV=1.254 (img-002) and CV=1.415 (img-003). Proposed benign explanations (regular repeated panel elements, uniform PDF export pipeline) have no positive support in the document.
Positive indicators: P values including negative results (P < 0.0003, P < 0.2782) with no p-hacking pattern; consistent timeline (received 2006-11-15, published 2007-02-16); reagents (TRIzol, Applied Biosystems 7300, BD SMART RACE, GATEWAY) all predate submission.

Evidence highlights

Copy-move detections with highest contribution: img-005 offset (208,0), 11 pairs (logLR=1.46); img-003 offset (0,32), 58 pairs (logLR=1.46); img-007 offset (88,0), 18 pairs (logLR=1.46).
The recurring cross-page offset (0,32) pattern is unexplained by any panel-layout claims in the manuscript.
Auto-generated Bayesian synthesis (geng_lr_v3, prior fixed at 5%): posterior ≥99.9%, BF = 6.13e+7 — this assumes conditional independence of evidence and likely overstates joint strength; treat as indicative only.
Raw numerical data were in supplementary materials only; last-digit, GRIM, and p-curve checks were not possible.

Notes

DOI: 10.1105/tpc.106.048934; The Plant Cell, Vol. 19: 458–472 (2007).
All visual findings rely on qualitative assessment; forensic signals cannot be confirmed at pixel level without original high-resolution images.
Recommended actions: request raw Ct values and SEs for Figures 1E, 6A/6B, 7D; request original images for Figures 2, 4, 5 and statistical panels; archive this report; formal allegation not advised pending verification.
AI-assisted report; final misconduct determination requires institutional investigation; false positives and false negatives are possible.