Fig. 1

Flow chart of the study process. *Samples excluded due to low sequencing quality and number of reads. **Features with less than 1% relative abundance in each sample, and those with a Kruskal–Wallis test and FDR-adjusted p-value greater than 0.05 across groups were excluded from the analysis. DFS, disease-free survival; RMBC, recurrence and metastasis of breast cancer; OTU, operational taxonomic unit.