Fig. 6: Influence of different dietary fibres on the functional profile of caecal microbiota of chickens.

Principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) of the caecal microbial community calculated by Bray-Curtis distance (A). Each symbol represents an individual sample, with the same symbols and colours indicating the same dietary group. The relative gene expression of caecal microbiota of chickens across different dietary groups (B). Heatmap illustrates the log fold change of differentially expressed carbohydrate-associated genes in pairwise comparison of different dietary groups (C). The Bar graph presents a log fold change of significantly differentially expressed genes in pairwise comparisons, CG vs. IN4 and CG vs. CE4 (D). A positive log fold change value (green) indicates an upregulated expression in the latter group, while a downregulated expression denotes the opposite (orange). Significance was declared at p ≤ 0.05. Grey tiles/bars denote non-significant differences. CG Control group, IN1 1% inulin, IN4 4% inulin, CE1 1% ARBOCEL, CE4 4% ARBOCEL.