Limitations
An important limitation of this study was the logistical limitation in exposing the animals to even longer low pO2 durations lasting 30 or more days. Another minor limitation of this study was the inability to directly juxtapose the lung proteome and plasma proteome owing to technical limitations in IPA. Both had to be analyzed separately.
Human volunteers recruited for the study, although picked at random from a pool of eligible volunteers, still represent a very small sample size for any statistical robustness of the plasma proteins analyzed. These proteins are only qualitative indicators for the processes mentioned and require larger cohort based studies in the future.