Fig. 6: Association of Inocle-α with human physiologies.

A Correlations between Inocle-α and cell types in PBMC. The heatmap shows the partial Spearman’s rho, with age and sex considered as confounders between PBMC populations and the abundance of Inocle-α and Streptococcus. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. B Plasma proteome pathways that were positively correlated with Inocle-α. The bar chart presents the results of Gene Ontology enrichment analysis using plasma proteins whose expression was significantly correlated with the abundance of the Inocle-α, based on partial Spearman’s rho with age and sex considered as confounders. C, D Comparison of the prevalence and abundance of Inocle-α (C) and Streptococcus (D) between healthy controls (HCs) (n = 53) and patients with head and neck cancer (HNC) (n = 45). The bar plots indicate the prevalence of Inocle-α and Streptococcus in the HC and HNC groups. The box plots indicate the abundance of Inocle-α and Streptococcus in the HC and HNC groups. The outliners are removed for visualization in box plots. *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001, N.S., not significant. Statistical results were obtained using a two-sided Fisher’s exact test for prevalence. MaAsLin2 was performed for abundance, with the Benjamini–Hochberg method for multiple comparisons and accounting for confounders for age, sex, smoking status, and cancer. Box plots represent the inter-quartile range (IQR), and lines inside the box indicate the median. Whiskers show 1.5 IQR. E Comparison of the abundance of Inocle-α and Streptococcus between patients with different diseases and HCs in each study. The coefficient values and p-value calculated via MaAsLin2 are shown. MaAsLin2 was performed with the Benjamini–Hochberg method for multiple comparisons and accounting for confounders of age and sex. *p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001. Abbreviations; HSPC Hematopoietic stem and progenitor cell, MAIT Mucosal associated invariant T, CRC colorectal cancer, PDAC pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma, RA rheumatoid arthritis.