Fig. 6
Clinical relevance of A. muciniphila, butyric acid and LRP5/β-catenin expression in breast cancer patients with negative mood. a Alpha diversity of gut microbiota between the HADS low (n = 24) and high (n = 33) groups of cohort 1 breast cancer patients, as indicated by Chao1 indices. b PCoA of fecal microbiota from cohort 1 breast cancer patients in the HADS low (n = 24) and high (n = 33) groups. c Volcano plots of the species level in the patients’ feces between the HADS low (n = 24) and high (n = 33) groups. The number of significant variant genes (P < 0.05) are shown. Levels of fecal butyric acid (d) and serum butyric acid (e) in cohort 1 breast cancer patients in the HADS low (n = 24) and HADS high (n = 33) groups. f Representative ZFP36, LRP5, β-catenin, and NANOG IHC staining images of tumors in patients in the low and high serum butyric acid groups (Scale bar, 50 μm). Pearson correlation between butyric acid concentrations of feces and ZFP36 (g), LRP5 (h), β-catenin (i) and NANOG (j) scores in breast cancer patients (n = 57). Statistical significance was determined by Pearson’s rank test. Relative ZFP36 (k) and LRP5 (l) mRNA expression between butyric acid in serum low (n = 19) and high (n = 20) groups in cohort 1 breast cancer patients. m Immunoblot analysis of proteins in breast tumor tissues (T) and adjacent normal breast tissues (N) (n = 5). Kaplan-Meier estimates of overall survival (OS) based on the expression of ZFP36 (n), LRP5 (o) and CTNNB1 (p). Patients were stratified into high-expression and low-expression groups using the median gene expression value as the cutoff in breast cancer patients. Results are presented as mean ± s.d. (a, c, d, e, k, l) by a two-tailed, unpaired Student’s t-test, (b) by weighted UniFrac ANOSIM analysis, g–j by Pearson’s rank test. For multiple comparisons, p-values were adjusted using the FDR correction. P values are as indicated
