On 2014 Nov 17, Raphael Levy commented:

Various aspects of this article are questioned at PubPeer, in particular the evidence for cytosolic localisation of striped nanoparticles. It is also worth noting that the article contains no experimental evidence for the existence of the stripes: not a single figure of Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy or other morphological characterization of the surface organisation of the nanoparticles neither in the paper, nor in the 47 pages SI.

The article belongs to the “stripy nanoparticles” series. The evidence behind the structure and special properties of these nanoparticles has been challenged by Cesbron Y, 2012. The publication in 2012 of Cesbron Y, 2012 took three years and has been followed by post-publication peer review of the various existing and new stripy articles on my blog, PubPeer, etc.

A detailed analysis of this body of work is published today in PloS One by Stirling et al; from the abstract: “through a combination of an exhaustive re-analysis of the original data with new experimental measurements of a simple control sample comprising entirely unfunctionalised particles, we conclusively show that all of the STM evidence for striped nanoparticles published to date can instead be explained by a combination of well-known instrumental artefacts, strong observer bias, and/or improper data acquisition/analysis protocols.”

On 2014 Nov 17, Raphael Levy commented:

Various aspects of this article are questioned at PubPeer, in particular the evidence for cytosolic localisation of striped nanoparticles. It is also worth noting that the article contains no experimental evidence for the existence of the stripes: not a single figure of Scanning Tunnelling Microscopy or other morphological characterization of the surface organisation of the nanoparticles neither in the paper, nor in the 47 pages SI.

The article belongs to the “stripy nanoparticles” series. The evidence behind the structure and special properties of these nanoparticles has been challenged by Cesbron Y, 2012. The publication in 2012 of Cesbron Y, 2012 took three years and has been followed by post-publication peer review of the various existing and new stripy articles on my blog, PubPeer, etc.

A detailed analysis of this body of work is published today in PloS One by Stirling et al; from the abstract: “through a combination of an exhaustive re-analysis of the original data with new experimental measurements of a simple control sample comprising entirely unfunctionalised particles, we conclusively show that all of the STM evidence for striped nanoparticles published to date can instead be explained by a combination of well-known instrumental artefacts, strong observer bias, and/or improper data acquisition/analysis protocols.”