High rates of lateral gene transfer are not due to false diagnosis of gene absence

Methods for assessing gene presence and absence have been widely used to study bacterial genome evolution. A recent report by Zhaxybayeva et al. [Zhaxybayeva, O., Nesbo, C. L., and Doolittle, W. F., 2007. Systematic overestimation of gene gain through false diagnosis of gene absence. Genome. Biol. 8, 402] suggests that false diagnosis of gene absence or the presence of undetected truncated genes leads to a systematic overestimation of gene …