Figure 5 illustrates the effects of FNDC1 knockdown on Wnt/β-catenin signaling in breast cancer cell lines, with corresponding protein expression levels shown via Western blotting. However, a critical issue arises in the lack of quantitative validation of these blots. The absence of densitometry analysis and normalization (e.g., to housekeeping proteins such as β-actin or GAPDH) makes it challenging to assess the reproducibility and statistical significance of the observed changes in Wnt/β-catenin pathway protein levels. Were densitometric analyses conducted to quantify the relative changes in protein expression, and if so, could the authors provide the results? Without this, it is difficult to confirm the extent to which FNDC1 knockdown directly modulates the Wnt/β-catenin pathway, potentially undermining the strength of the conclusions drawn from Figure 5.
