Given that the bacterial genome has over 800 contigs, but its quality metrics are good, with a completeness of 98.55% and a contamination of 0.68% as assessed by CheckM, what specific validation methods and analyses were conducted to ensure the accuracy of this observation? How can we be confident that the higher protein count, which significantly exceeds the genus average, is a genuine characteristic of the genome and not a result of technical artifacts, assembly errors, or contamination?