After a year, shorthand notes and abbreviated sketches may be insufficient; once the lab notebooks start to pile up, other scientists start making use of the recorded processes, and eventually the original scientist moves on to another project or leaves the institution, an experimental record is seriously deficient without detailed explanation.
We examined gene expression in the developing gonad of Maestro-deficient animals with this explanation in mind, but no significant differences between mutant and wild-type samples were observed.
In the absence of a systematic expansion of the CD56bright NK cell fraction in TAP-deficient patients, an alternative explanation for the values observed in patients EFA and EMO could be that CD56bright NK cells become more abundant as a reaction to an acute infection or to the chronic inflammatory state present in these patients (whereas patients SFH and DFH were asymptomatic).
Further tests (including RDW, blood films, serum ferritin levels etc) might then be added to existing blood samples or performed following recovery to further characterise whether an iron-deficient state or alternative explanation for the microcytosis is present.
Increased numbers of Tregs in IL-21R-deficient mice offer an explanation for suppression of Th2-mediated asthma and susceptibility to chronic viral infection described in the knockout mice [ 5, 10].
The question is whether the explanation is somehow deficient, or unscientific, in the absence of this information.
Most importantly, the expression of regulatory factors that activate the expression of BAT-selective genes was up-regulated in the WAT of FSP27 deficient mice, providing a molecular explanation for the increased expression of BAT-selective genes and the acquisition of BAT-like properties in the WAT of FSP27-deficient mice.
The increased rate of lung metastasis observed in Shb deficient mice may have several explanations.
Ascribing of RTIs to alternative explanations such as deficient personal hygiene or to the adverse physical environment occurs in a setting where women have little or no control over sexual decision-making.
The well-established function of dysferlin in fusion of vesicles with the plasma membrane (10, 16) and the observation of reduced cytokine release by dysferlin-deficient cells provide an alternative explanation, that part of the function of dysferlin is to release cytokines from internal vesicles in order to attract neutrophils to the site of injury.
