Figure 1

Microbiota composition in the fecal samples of preterm infants. Principal coordinates analyses (PCoA, Bray-Curtis dissimilarities) (a–c). The axes represent PCoA component scores, showing the two most important gradients differentiating the microbial communities. Each circle represents a microbial community, colored in panel (a) by the dominant organism in the community (>50% of all reads). Background color corresponds to: (b) postnatal age of the infant at the time of fecal sample collection; (c) postmenstrual age of the infant at sample collection. Blue background indicates low values, green intermediate, and orange high values. Average relative abundances of the dominant families in extremely premature (EP), moderately or very premature (MVP), compared to term infants from a Dutch cohort, at different postmenstrual ages (weeks)²⁵ (d). Average total DNA concentration by postmenstrual age, divided to bacterial taxa based on their relative abundances in the 16S rRNA data (e).