SuperPlots: Communicating reproducibility and variability in cell biology
Open accessAbstract
P values and error bars help readers infer whether a reported difference would likely recur, with the sample size n used for statistical tests representing biological replicates, independent measurements of the population from separate experiments. We provide examples and practical tutorials for creating figures that communicate both the cell-level variability and the experimental reproducibility.
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.
Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
Only a patient-derived repository led by the NCI and the Human Cancer Models Initiative have started to generate organoid data repositories, and only for cancer organoids.
“Only a patient-derived repository225 led by the National Cancer Institute (NCI in the USA) and the Human Cancer Models Initiative (HCMI), a combined international effort of several institutions (Cancer Research UK; NCI; Hubrecht Organoid Technology’s the HUB; and the US Office of Cancer Genomics’s OCG), have started to generate organoid data repositories, but only for cancer organoids (Supplement”
From Organoids (2022) · cites this paper as [225]
The Introduction and Abstract describe SuperPlots and the presentation of experimental variability, not organoid repositories. Searches for the Human Cancer Models Initiative, the National Cancer Institute, and patient-derived cancer organoid repositories found no passage addressing the claim in our copy. No page numbers are provided for these passages. (LLM, conf=0.76)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measured
Self-check
Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.
The self-check needs the paper’s full text.
Cites
Data Analysis Using Regression and Multilevel/Hierarchical Models
Gelman, A., & Hill, J. (2006) · doi:10.1017/cbo9780511790942 · Cited by 13,597 · see citing works
Pseudoreplication and the Design of Ecological Field Experiments
Hurlbert, S. H. (1984) · Ecological Monographs · doi:10.2307/1942661 · Cited by 8,377 · see citing works
Deeks, J. J., Altman, D. G., & Bradburn, M. J. (2001) · Systematic Reviews in Health Care · doi:10.1002/9780470693926.ch15 · Cited by 2,163 · see citing works
Error bars in experimental biology
Cumming, G., Fidler, F., & Vaux, D. L. (2007) · The Journal of Cell Biology · doi:10.1083/jcb.200611141 · Cited by 940 · see citing works
Beyond Bar and Line Graphs: Time for a New Data Presentation Paradigm
Weissgerber, T. L., Milic, N. M., Winham, S. J., & Garovic, V. D. (2015) · PLoS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.1002128 · Cited by 713 · see citing works
The problem of pseudoreplication in neuroscientific studies: is it affecting your analysis?
Lazic, S. E. (2010) · BMC Neuroscience · doi:10.1186/1471-2202-11-5 · Cited by 381 · see citing works
What exactly is ‘N’ in cell culture and animal experiments?
Lazic, S. E., Clarke-Williams, C. J., & Munafò, M. R. (2018) · PLOS Biology · doi:10.1371/journal.pbio.2005282 · Cited by 291 · see citing works
Effect sizes and p values: What should be reported and what should be replicated?
Greenwald, A. G., Gonzalez, R., Harris, R., & Guthrie, D. (1996) · Psychophysiology · doi:10.1111/j.1469-8986.1996.tb02121.x · Cited by 273 · see citing works
Statistics Notes: Units of analysis
Altman, D. G., & Martin Bland, J. (1997) · BMJ · doi:10.1136/bmj.314.7098.1874 · Cited by 271 · see citing works
A Study of Clustered Data and Approaches to Its Analysis
Galbraith, S., Daniel, J. A., & Vissel, B. (2010) · Journal of Neuroscience · doi:10.1523/jneurosci.0362-10.2010 · Cited by 270 · see citing works
Blainey, P. C., Krzywinski, M. I., & Altman, N. (2014) · Nature Methods · doi:10.1038/nmeth.3091 · Cited by 211 · see citing works
Vaux, D. L., Fidler, F., & Cumming, G. (2012) · The EMBO Reports · doi:10.1038/embor.2012.36 · Cited by 155 · see citing works
Data visualization, bar naked: A free tool for creating interactive graphics
Weissgerber, T. L., Savic, M. D., Winham, S. J., Stanisavljevic, D. M., Garovic, V. D., & Milic, N. M. (2017) · Journal of Biological Chemistry · doi:10.1074/jbc.ra117.000147 · Cited by 79 · see citing works
Krzywinski, M. I., Altman, N., & Blainey, P. C. (2014) · Nature Methods · doi:10.1038/nmeth.3137 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Aarts, E., Dolan, C. V., Verhage, M., & van der Sluis, S. (2015) · BMC Neuroscience · doi:10.1186/s12868-015-0228-5 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Empowering statistical methods for cellular and molecular biologists
Pollard, D. A., Pollard, T. D., & Pollard, K. S. (2019) · Molecular Biology of the Cell · doi:10.1091/mbc.e15-02-0076 · Cited by 59 · see citing works
Altman, N., & Krzywinski, M. I. (2014) · Nature Methods · doi:10.1038/nmeth.3224 · Cited by 53 · see citing works
A Bayesian predictive approach for dealing with pseudoreplication
Lazic, S., Mellor, J., Ashby, M. C., & Munafo, M. (2019) · Scientific Reports · doi:10.1038/s41598-020-59384-7 · Cited by 44 · see citing works
Criteria for biological reproducibility: What does “ n ” mean?
Naegle, K. M., Gough, N. R., & Yaffe, M. B. (2015) · Science Signaling · doi:10.1126/scisignal.aab1125 · Cited by 30 · see citing works
Lamb, T. J., Graham, A. L., & Petrie, A. (2008) · Immunity · doi:10.1016/j.immuni.2008.02.003 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Zhao, Z., Chen, X., Dowbaj, A. M., Sljukic, A., Bratlie, K., Lin, L., Fong, E. L. S., Balachander, G. M., Chen, Z., Soragni, A., et al. (2022) · Nature Reviews Methods Primers · doi:10.1038/s43586-022-00174-y · Cited by 1,001 · see citing works
McMillan, M., Gomez, N., Hsieh, C., Bekier, M., Li, X., Miguez, R., Tank, E. M. H., & Barmada, S. J. (2023) · Molecular Cell · doi:10.1016/j.molcel.2022.12.019 · Cited by 112 · see citing works
Genes that escape X chromosome inactivation modulate sex differences in valve myofibroblasts
Aguado, B. A., Walker, C. J., Grim, J. C., Schroeder, M. E., Batan, D., Vogt, B. J., Rodriguez, A. G., Schwisow, J. A., Moulton, K. S., Weiss, R. M., et al. (2022) · Circulation · doi:10.1161/circulationaha.121.054108 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
Nuclear pore complexes — a doorway to neural injury in neurodegeneration
Coyne, A. N., & Rothstein, J. D. (2022) · Nature Reviews Neurology · doi:10.1038/s41582-022-00653-6 · Cited by 96 · see citing works
Protective ApoE variants support neuronal function by effluxing oxidized phospholipids
Ralhan, I., Do, A. D., Bae, J.-Y., Feringa, F. M., Cai, W., Chang, J., Chik, K., Lee, N. Y. J., Gerry, C. J., van der Kant, R., et al. (2026) · Neuron · doi:10.1016/j.neuron.2025.10.040 · Cited by 23 · see citing works
Loss of Num1-mediated cortical dynein anchoring negatively impacts respiratory growth
White, A. J., Harper, C. S., Rosario, E. M., Dietz, J. V., Addis, H. G., Fox, J. L., Khalimonchuk, O., & Lackner, L. L. (2022) · Journal of Cell Science · doi:10.1242/jcs.259980 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
The cell wall polymer initiates plasma membrane partitioning in mycobacteria
Kado, T., Akbary, Z., Motooka, D., Sparks, I. L., Melzer, E. S., Nakamura, S., Rojas, E. R., Morita, Y. S., & Siegrist, M. S. (2022) · doi:10.1101/2022.06.12.495848 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
The desmoglein 2 interactome in primary neonatal cardiomyocytes
Li, Y., Campbell, A. P., Balasubramanian, S., Zeng, X., Porter, E., Cantrell, P. S., Sun, M., Mattheyses, A. L., & Kwiatkowski, A. V. (2026) · Journal of Cell Science · doi:10.1242/jcs.264213 · Cited by 2 · see citing works
- Authors
- Lord, S. J., Velle, K. B., Mullins, R. D., & Fritz-Laylin, L. K.
- Affiliations
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute (US)
- University of Massachusetts Amherst (US)
- Department of Biology, University of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA 2
- Corresponding author
- Mullins, R. Dyche
- Venue
- Journal of Cell Biology
- Publisher
- Rockefeller University Press
- Published
- 2020-04-28
- Volume
- 219
- Issue
- 6
- ISSN
- 0021-9525 (ISSN-L)
- 1540-8140
- PMC
- PMC7265319
- OpenAlex
- W3104572769
- Cited by
- 718
- References
- 20
- Citations by year
- 2026: 112 · 2025: 143 · 2024: 111 · 2023: 140 · 2022: 114 · 2021: 74 · 2020: 24
- FWCI
- 34.21
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- The Journal of Cell Biology (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-sa)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University) (submittedVersion)
- arXiv (Cornell University)
- Funders
- National Institutes of Health (R35-GM118119)
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (1R21AI139363)
- National Science Foundation (IOS-1827257)
- Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences
- Howard Hughes Medical Institute
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Computer Vision and Pattern Recognition › Data Visualization and Analytics
- Life Sciences › Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology › Biophysics › Cell Image Analysis Techniques
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › History and Philosophy of Science › Academic Writing and Publishing
- Keywords
- reproducibility, biological variation, biological replicates, sample size, p-values, error bars, figure design, statistical reporting
- MeSH terms
- Cell Biology, Reproducibility of Results, Models, Statistical, Sample Size, Biostatistics
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
