EXPRESSION OF CONCERN: Live-Cell Single-Molecule Imaging Reveals Clathrin and Caveolin-1 Dependent Docking of SMAD4 at the Cell Membrane

Expression of Concern: Y. Yang, J. Wolfram, J. Shen, Y. Zhao, X. Fang, H. Shen, and M. Ferrari, “ Live-Cell Single-Molecule Imaging Reveals Clathrin and Caveolin-1 Dependent Docking of SMAD4 at the Cell Membrane,” FEBS Letters 587, no. 24 (2013): 3912–3920, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.febslet.2013.10.041.

This Expression of Concern is for the above article, published online on 6 November 2013 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), and has been issued by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Michael Brunner; the Federation of European Biochemical Societies; and John Wiley & Sons Ltd. UK. The Expression of Concern has been agreed due to concerns of image duplication in Figure 3. Figure 3A contains an inappropriate duplication; the same micrograph of Smad4 immunofluorescence is shown for both the siCLTC and plCav-1 conditions. The authors claim this error was not present in the original submission, and was introduced at revision or during production. Additionally, Figure 3B contains an inappropriate duplication of the immunoblots against RhoGDI for two different conditions. The authors informed the journal that the apparent image duplications in Figure 3 were owed to inadvertent errors by first and co-corresponding author Yong Yang, and do not invalidate the overall primary claims or conclusions of the manuscript. Given the time elapsed since publication, and the fact that all authors have left the institution where the experiments were carried out, the authors were unable to provide the original images. Therefore, the journal has decided to issue an Expression of Concern to inform and alert the readers.