Fig. 1: Similar development of gut microbiota comparing infants receiving the synbiotic with the prebiotic formula.

a Line plots showing bacterial diversity in the study groups across the visits based on the Shannon index (mean with SD): Test (red), Control (blue) and Breastfed reference group (green). b Taxa with significantly different relative abundances between Test and Control at 17 weeks of age based on the multi-part statistical test with correction for multiple testing by controlling the positive false discovery rate at 5% (red dashed line). Significant taxa are shown by black dots with taxon assignments and non-significant taxa by gray dots. c Comparison of gut microbiota composition at 17 weeks based on a Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) with Bray–Curtis sample distances. The two primary axes (PC1 and PC2) together account for 56% of the total microbial variance. Individual samples are shown as dots with their distances (gray lines) to the group centroids (squares) and the 95% confidence interval ellipses per study group. The p-values represent the results of the post-hoc comparisons from the PERMANOVA test on the group centroids with Holm’s step-down adjustment to correct for multiple testing at a 5% threshold. TvsC Test vs. Control, TvsB Test vs. Breastfed, CvsB Control vs. Breastfed.