The Plant Cell, Volume 25, Issue 12, December 2013, Pages 4941-4955, https://doi.org/10.1105/tpc.113.117861
In February 2024, the corresponding author of the above article notified the journal that several concerns had been raised via PubPeer (https://pubpeer.com/publications/2B199168969C0CEB5BB4622459CCCA), and requested retraction of the article. The concerns relate to Figures 2, 3, 4, 5, and 6, as well as Supplementary Figures 4 and 5, for which the co-first authors conducted the experiments and assembled the images. Specifically, some plant images were reused in different contexts, assigned different genotypes, and rescaled or mirrored to fit experimental expectations, and some figures contained duplicated or manipulated images, where identical plants were described inconsistently.
Following an investigation, which included reviewing the raw data underlying these figures, the journal’s editorial team concurred that the first author’s explanations for the errors could not be verified with certainty and that article retraction was warranted, because the quantifications based on these images are unreliable, undermining the validity of the conclusions reported.
The first, second, and fifth named authors agree with the retraction. The third and fourth named authors could not be contacted to obtain their agreement on the retraction. The corresponding author has apologized that these errors were not identified prior to article publication.