Past exam of the biochemistry course of the University of Cambridge / 2025 / Paper 5 / Section 1 / 1 / m

The 1–15 fragment has a slightly lower mean degradation signal and perhaps lower invadopodium formation than the longer N-terminal fragment. It may be the stronger inhibitor, but the displayed comparisons do not establish that difference. The asterisks compare groups with control, not necessarily the two active fragments with one another. Their error bars overlap, and overlap alone is neither a definitive test of equality nor a calibrated significance test.

A direct comparison needs replicate-level data and a suitable statistical hypothesis test, with an effect size and confidence interval. Comparable fragment abundance, cell viability and cell number are also needed before interpreting a phenotypic difference as greater molecular potency.