Fig. 6: Hepatic bacterial 16s rDNA is increased in cirrhosis patients and shapes the hepatic transcriptomic landscape.

a Study outline: Snap frozen surgical liver tissue specimen were taken from 44 cirrhosis patients that underwent liver transplantation or 11 healthy controls. DNA and mRNA were isolated from the same tissue specimen and tissue region and subjected to 16 s rRNA gene amplicon sequencing or mRNA sequencing. b 16s rRNA gene copies/ng DNA determined by real time quantitative PCR in control (n = 12) and cirrhotic (n = 43) liver (Mann–Whitney-U-Test, p = 0.014). c Pathway activity based on mRNA-sequencing data and inferred by PROGENy computational pathway analysis in cirrhosis patients (n = 22) vs. healthy controls (n = 8). Correlation of 16S rRNA gene abundance with pathway activation (Spearman correlation, n = 30 pairs). d Computational Cell type enrichment analysis and correlation of calculated cell types with 16S rRNA gene abundance of cirrhotic patients (n = 22) and healthy controls (n = 8). e 16S rRNA gene abundance strongly correlates with the expression of immune checkpoint genes (Spearman correlation, n = 30 pairs, two-tailed). f Correlation of CTLA4 and g transcription factors involved in T-cell exhaustion (TOX, IRF4) with rRNA gene copies/ng genomic DNA (Spearman, n = 30 pairs, all 2-tailed, p < 0.0001). All Data are presented as the mean ± standard error of the mean (SEM) and considered significant at p < 0.05 (*), p < 0.01 (**), p < 0.001 (***). Source data are provided as a Source data file.