I am thinking about publishing work based on RAPD PCR. The problem I am having is that my gel pictures consist of several different experiments/primers (represented by 10 samples each) beside a single ladder. I would like to divide each picture to create several individual gels (1 per experiment/primer) by cropping. However, to include the ladder with each new gel, I would need to use copy and paste to attach it and it will likely be noticeable that this has been done raising questions about the authenticity. The ladder will have truthfully been run on the same gel but the appearance will be an issue. Is there any way around this? For example, is there software available which can help the two segments to blend together seamlessly?
Agree with the above comments..DO NOT manipulate images. It will raise a lot of suspect...as for your question you can do two things:
1-re-run the gel
2-for sake of clarity, split the images of the gel and put a reference ladder (drawn) besides it, but explaining clearly on the caption..but again this could be considered suspicious...
In an era of photoshop and other manipulation software, it is really difficult to distinguish between "honest" manipulation and "malicious" images changes...
for information, take a look on "nature" guidelines...if you adhere to that, most journal will be happy with your results :
http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/image.html
Agree with Imran Khan, it would be easier to repeat your run with the ladder. Playing with a photo: never think about it. It would make a reviewer to feel safer if you provide it written, next to your image instead of playing with the gel photo. Some journals provide cropped gel photos when they are "representative",-sometimes even without the ladder- which I do not find satisfactory either.
good luck!
Agree with the above comments..DO NOT manipulate images. It will raise a lot of suspect...as for your question you can do two things:
1-re-run the gel
2-for sake of clarity, split the images of the gel and put a reference ladder (drawn) besides it, but explaining clearly on the caption..but again this could be considered suspicious...
In an era of photoshop and other manipulation software, it is really difficult to distinguish between "honest" manipulation and "malicious" images changes...
for information, take a look on "nature" guidelines...if you adhere to that, most journal will be happy with your results :
http://www.nature.com/authors/policies/image.html
Seamlessly merging the ladder in a place where it had not been would be fabrication (you would be making an image that did not exist in the original data), so please do not do it. Make one big image and see what the journal editor and reviewers say. If they ask that you crop it into separate Fig. and use black lines to indicate the ladder then fine, but they will probably also want the big original image in the supplemental data.
Dear Sam,
I don't understand this hullabaloo about simple redisign of your results.
You have an informative gell picture where your data are staying unchanged and you want to juxtapose only the ladder lane. What's the problem? You do not change informativeness of your data and the ladder is only representing a tool to visually compare your PCR products with the bands of given size on the ladder (it's like you drawing arows or so). As Fulvio suggest, here's what "Nature" says:
"Vertically sliced images that juxtapose lanes that were non-adjacent in the gel must have a clear separation or a black line delineating the boundary between the gels."
And more:
"The use of touch-up tools, such as cloning and healing tools in Photoshop, or any feature that deliberately obscures manipulations, is to be avoided.
Processing (such as changing brightness and contrast) is appropriate only when it is applied equally across the entire image and is applied equally to controls. Contrast should not be adjusted so that data disappear. Excessive manipulations, such as processing to emphasize one region in the image at the expense of others (for example, through the use of a biased choice of threshold settings), is inappropriate, as is emphasizing experimental data relative to the control."
Simple as that! Imran said that it's probably the best to put a line between the ladder and the samples and you need to mention that in the figure capture. It is, naturally, the best way to publish a figure as is, but if the modifications are unavoidable (of course, the legal ones), and if these modifications increase informativeness of your figure, I don't see the reason to avoid them.
Moreover, since I'm doing some of my population research by using RAPD technique, I would say there's now not easy way to publish a manuscript in which these markers are used. So, whichever journal you choose, I don't think their Instruction for Authors would be more rigid than that of the Nature's.
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