Figure 4: Maternal and juvenile dietary manipulations synergistically alter the offspring microbiome.

M. fuscata offspring were vaginally delivered to mothers consuming a control (CTD) or high-fat diet (HFD). Infants consumed the maternal diet until weaning when they were either maintained on the maternal diet (control cohort) or switched to the opposing diet (crossover cohort). At 1 year of age, juveniles were killed and DNA was isolated from intestinal samples. DNA was subjected to 16S rDNA pyrosequencing, and sequences were analysed using QIIME. Mothers consuming a high-fat diet are indicated by dark blue (HFD), and control diet mothers are indicated by yellow (CTD). Juveniles are designated based on the maternal/post-wean diets; that is, CTD/HFD indicates a juvenile that was born to a dam consuming a control diet and switched to a high-fat diet post-weaning. Red represents juveniles on a control diet/control diet (CTD/CTD), dark green indicates juveniles on a high-fat diet/high fat diet (HFD/HFD), orange indicates juveniles on a high-fat diet/control diet (HFD/CTD) and light green indicates juveniles on a control diet/high-fat diet (CTD/HFD). Lines connect maternal-fetal pairs. The number of dams or juveniles in each cohort (n) is indicated in the parenthesis on the legend. (a) PCoA of intestinal samples from maternal-fetal pairs. (b) PCoA of intestinal samples from all juvenile cohorts. Juveniles exposed to a high-fat diet post-weaning significantly clustered (P=0.001 by PERMANOVA) when compared with juveniles exposed to a control diet post-weaning. (c) PCoA of intestinal samples from juveniles maintained on a control diet post-weaning. Juveniles exposed to a high-fat diet pre-weaning significantly clustered (P=0.016 by PERMANOVA) when compared with juveniles exposed to a control diet post-weaning.