Expression of Concern on “DNA Extraction Protocol for Plants with High Levels of Secondary Metabolites and Polysaccharides without Using Liquid Nitrogen and Phenol”

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International Scholarly Research Notices would like to express concern with the article titled “DNA Extraction Protocol for Plants with High Levels of Secondary Metabolites and Polysaccharides without Using Liquid Nitrogen and Phenol” [1] due to potential figure issues.

As raised on PubPeer [2], several lanes in Figures 2 and 3 appear to be similar to each other. The authors provided the original images (Supplementary Materials) and said the banding similarity is due to using the same species (Avicennia marina) for RAPD analyses in Figure 2 and for RFLP analyses in Figure 3. While banding is expected to be similar when the same samples or species are used, the features in lanes 3 and 5 in Figure 2, lanes 8 and 9 in Figure 3, and lanes 10 and 11 in Figure 3 are unusually similar.

Supplementary Materials

Higher-resolution images of the gel electrophoresis reported in Figures 2, 3, and 4, as provided by the authors. (Supplementary Materials)