EXPRESSION OF CONCERN: Binding of Insecticidal Lectin Colocasia esculenta Tuber Agglutinin (CEA) to Midgut Receptors of Bemisia tabaci and Lipaphis erysimi Provides Clues to its Insecticidal Potential

EXPRESSION OF CONCERN: A, Roy, S, Gupta, D, Hess, K, P, Das, and S, Das, “Binding of Insecticidal Lectin Colocasia esculenta Tuber Agglutinin (CEA) to Midgut Receptors of Bemisia tabaci and Lipaphis erysimi Provides Clues to its Insecticidal Potential,” Proteomics 14, no. 13–14 (2014): 1646–1659, https://doi.org/10.1002/pmic.201300408.

This Expression of Concern is for the above article, published online on 17 April 2014 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), and has been issued by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Lucie Kalvodova, and Wiley-VCH GmbH. A third party reported concerns that the image in Figure 1D as well as the marker lanes used in Figures 2D,E in this paper had been reused from another article by some of the same authors (Mondal et al. 2012 [http://doi.org/10.4236/ajps.2012.36094]). The authors responded to an inquiry by the publisher and stated that Figure 1D had been reused from the previous publication unintentionally and that the marker lanes in Figures 2D,E had been re-used across all their publications on mannose binding lectins during 2010 and through 2015. The authors supplied a new image for the CEA western blot in Figure 1D and the associated original data, but the parties could not confirm that the supplied data corresponded to the correct samples. The authors additionally confirmed that the original data for the CEA purification experiments were no longer available. The authors provided additional data which were related to the experiment in Figure 1D. However, the publisher could not verify its authenticity because the full set of data related to the experiment was not available. The Expression of Concern has been agreed to because, while the re-use of marker lanes is not viewed as a major concern, the parties have not been able to validate the data presented in Figure 1D. Therefore, the journal has decided to issue an expression of concern to inform and alert the readers. The authors disagree with the expression of concern.

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.