Fig. 3: Structural diversity and differential abundance analysis of saliva samples by 16 S rRNA gene amplicon sequencing.

a Alpha diversity (Chao1, Shannon, InvSimpson, Fisher) comparisons of salivary microbiota samples between study groups. Median estimates compared across study groups using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Boxes represent the interquartile range, lines indicate medians, and whiskers indicate the range. n.s: not significant. b Beta diversity comparisons of saliva samples between study groups. PCoA was calculated using Aitchison distance. The ellipses represent a 95% confidence level. Color is indicative of the study group. c Number of differentially abundant genera across 4 microbiome differential abundance methods, namely ANCOM-BC, ANOVA, LefSe, MaAsLin2.Vertical bars represent the number of differentially abundant genera shared between the methods highlighted with connected dots in the lower panel. The horizontal bars in the lower panel indicate the total number of differentially abundant genera detected by each method. d Abundance distribution of differentially abundant genera detected by at least two methods across study groups. Median estimates compared across study groups using the Kruskal-Wallis test. Boxes represent the interquartile range, lines indicate medians, and whiskers indicate the range. p-values represent the overall FDR-corrected p-values.