Fig. 2: Microbial compositional changes in different treatment groups.

Boxplots showing the alpha diversity measured by observed species (A) and the principal coordinate analysis (B) of the gut microbiota. C, D Venn plots showing the numbers of significantly increased (colored in yellow) and decreased (in green) amplicon sequence variations (ASVs) in HFD vs. NCD and silymarin/silibinin vs. HFD groups; the two silibinin groups were combined for this analysis. E Heatmap showing the mean relative abundances of the top 100 ASVs in different groups; changes in the relative abundances of four representative ASVs were further highlighted. Six rats were included in each group. Two-sided Wilcox rank-sum test was used to access the group differences of alpha diversity; groups labeled with different letters (a, b, or c) indicate significant statistical differences (FDR adjusted P < 0.05). Significant different ASVs were analyzed by Wald test (−, *, +, and # indicate FDR adjusted P < 0.1, 0.05, 0.01, and 0.001, respectively). The horizontal line in each box represents the median, the top and bottom of the box the 25th and 75th percentiles, and the whiskers 1.5 times the interquartile range. NCD normal chow diet, HFD high fat diet. Source data are provided as a Source data file.