The limited number of patients (27) included in the analysis, and the complexity of the NSAA scoring system, which comprises assessment of 17 different activities related to gross motor function, might obscure subtle differences in protein profiles and highlights the need of detailed patient data recording in connection with sample retrieval.
This might obscure smaller differences that occur in one compartment, but not in the other, especially given their known differences in leukocyte composition (Doisne et al., 2015, Tagliani et al., 2011).
However, gfap expression in the extensive processes of radial glial cells precludes precise quantification and might obscure subtle differences.
Without an established definition, it might obscure important differences in philosophy, strategies, and priorities for actions among physicians, researchers, funders, media, and even general public (2).
Unless individual variability of NOx intake is taken into account, measures of NOx in urine and serum will probably not reflect endogenous NO production, and exogenous NOx might obscure true differences in endogenous NOx production.
Increased spatial variation in nutrient availability could also produce variation across subpopulations in access to nutrients that might obscure fitness differences between genotypes (Figs 4 and 5; van Noordwijk and de Jong 1986; Reznick et al. 2000) and result in changes in genotype frequency driven solely by variable resources (Table 1: H13).
Yet, it is possible that some of these individuals had PD, which might obscure a difference between RA patients and control participants.
Disability is a complex, multidimensional phenomenon, and a global score might obscure domain-specific differences in disability.
Therefore, we reason that the mean miRNA-expression levels can vary depending on DICER1 expression and that normalization relative to the mean miRNA-expression level might obscure between-sample differences, particularly in breast cancer.
