Fig. 2: Microbial diversity and differentially abundant species-level genome bins (SGBs) between groups.

a Shannon diversity index of the fecal microbiome at 0d, 1 M, and 3 M in placebo and Probio-M8 groups, respectively. Statistical differences in the Shannon diversity index within groups were evaluated with paired t-tests. Each dot represents a data point of a participant, and data of the same participant at different time points are connected by straight lines. Boxplot elements: center line, median; box limits, upper and lower quartiles; whiskers, 1.5x interquartile range; points, outliers. b Left panel, principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) score plots of two groups at different time points. Samples of each subgroup are represented by a different color. Right panel, P value and R value of analysis of similarities (ANOSIM, 999 permutations). c Longitudinal comparisons of an abundance of SGBs of the same group between different time points. All the shown SGBs were not significantly different between groups at baseline but only increased/decreased significantly during the trial. Significant differences in specific SGBs between 0d and other time points are represented by *P < 0.05 and **P < 0.01; between 1 M and 3 M are represented by ^#P < 0.05. d Horizontal comparisons between an abundance of SGBs of Probio-M8 and placebo groups at the same time point. All the shown SGBs were not significantly different between groups at baseline but became significantly differential abundant during/after the intervention. Significant differences: *P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, and ***P < 0.001. The red corner rectangles in (c) and (d) represents an abundance of SGBs on an arbitrary scale. “Pro” and “Pla” represent the Probio-M8 group and Placebo group, respectively. “0d”, “1 M”, and “3 M” represent the baseline before intervention, 1 and 3 months after intervention, respectively.