These data would indicate that acquisition of foreign genes might not be regulated as could be R. solanacearum genes but would rather result from the combination of several events happening mainly by chance and at very low frequency including the uptake of exogenous DNA and its integration and/or by rearrangement in the genome post-HGT.
Other focal infections such as bacterial peritonitis could rather have resulted from blood stream spread from a small, unidentified portal of entry (e.g., skin infection due to S. aureus).
Nevertheless, D. caveatum seems to be a professional phagocyte whose phagocytic prey spectrum extends beyond the Dictyostelia clade, and this property could rather have resulted from a gain of function.
The present study fortifies the novel idea we suggested in our previous studies [ 18, 19, 26] that tumour malignancy does not necessarily arise from increased or decreased expression of genes, rather could result from a disorganization of existing molecules, held together, repulsed and influenced by carbohydrates, and demonstrates a complex interplay between lipids, proteins and carbohydrates.
Recently, Hernandez et al. [ 32] argued that reduced diversity and increased population differentiation in exons could partly result from background selection rather than from selective sweeps, but alternative forms of adaptation, such as selection on standing variation or on multiple beneficial alleles could contribute to population differentiation [see e.g. [ 33, 34]].
The observed decrease in the frequency of some common clones (which might result in an increase in clonal diversity) could potentially result from an investment into sexual rather than parthenogenetic reproduction.
The lower magnitude of the Happiness Paradox could result from the rather low, yet robust, correlation between Happiness and Popularity (Pearson's (R=0.100), 95% CI ([0.076,0.140])).
Hence, some of the reported earthworm effects could also result from nutrient input caused by decomposing worm tissue rather than from actual earthworm activity.
However, this small deviation could result from scoring error rather than a genuine deviation from Mendelian segregation.
We assumed that these responses could result from diagnostic uncertainties rather than material errors, and we retained them in analysis.
