From the article:

> This image is supposed to demonstrate that the antibody being sold works as intended. (…) Antibodies are near-ubiquitous but notoriously fickle laboratory reagents in biomedical research. For many applications, it is absolutely crucial that the antibodies that you use are selective (i.e., the antibody binds strongly to the target protein) and specific (i.e., the antibody binds to the protein of interest and little else).

Antibodies showing a different picture (Western blot) than what is expected can drastically change the interpretation of the results as well as the conclusion of a study, for example. It may also encourage scientific fraud by authors by forcing them to unknowingly/coincidentally make to a blot image the same (or similar) fraudulent modifications performed by the vendor.

Now I’m curious about how much of the blot photoshopping present in retracted papers can be attributed to these misleading verification data.

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raverbashing 5 hours ago | parent [-]

I would be more worried if the blotted area was different (the dark blob) - or if data in a datasheet (something like test specificity, level of detection, etc) was wrong

Now, if while preparing the images they needed to do some editorial choices (or it is well possible a person in the editorial group was told to 'enhance the images' but wasn't aware of the details) because of limitations in doing the experiment then this is probably not a big deal

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flobosg 4 hours ago | parent | next [-]

> I would be more worried if the blotted area was different (the dark blob)

Or if more than one blob is present (i.e. blobs at different molecular weights) for a supposedly selective and specific antibody that should show exactly one blob on the blot.

> Now, if while preparing the images they needed to do some editorial choices

Editorial choices on raw scientific data are a big no-no.

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raverbashing 4 hours ago | parent [-]

> Editorial choices on raw scientific data are a big no-no.

I don't think you can find a picture in an article that hasn't been photoshopped in one way or another (which is mostly ok as long as it is not misleading)

Edit: TF's reply is interesting https://www.thermofisher.com/es/es/home/life-science/antibod...

Basically they say they are reviewing the images

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flobosg 4 hours ago | parent [-]

Usually, journals require raw, unmodified data to be deposited as supplementary information.

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raverbashing 3 hours ago | parent [-]

Yes, as supplementary information

(Also journals are usually more rigorous than marketing material)

	▲	flobosg 2 hours ago \| parent [-]
		> Yes, as supplementary information Still part of the article.

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bonsai_spool 4 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Do you work in biology?

> would be more worried if the blotted area was different (the dark blob) - or if data in a datasheet (something like test specificity, level of detection, etc) was wrong

These images are provided on the datasheet and form the basis for the level of detection / specificity claims

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codedokode 3 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

It is obvious that they edited the images to make blobs look shorter vertically. And in some cases, simply copy-pasted non-existing blobs.