Fig. 1: Chronic psychosocial stress leads to microbiome, behavioural, physiological and immune alterations.
From: The gut virome is associated with stress-induced changes in behaviour and immune responses in mice
a, Chronic psychosocial stress experimental timeline. b, Faecal bacteriome Aitchison beta-diversity was significantly different between stress (Stress) and control (Ctr) groups as assessed by PERMANOVA (R2 = 0.1693, P < 0.01; Ctr n = 10, Stress n = 9). c, There was a trend of a difference in pooled faecal virome Aitchison beta-diversity between stress and control groups as assessed by PERMANOVA (R2 = 0.3011, P = 0.1; Ctr n = 10 pooled in 3 samples, Stress n = 10 pooled in 3 samples). d,e, No differences were found in bacteriome (d) (Ctr n = 9, Stress n = 9) or virome (e) alpha-diversity metrics (Ctr n = 10 pooled in 3 samples, Stress n = 10 pooled in 3 samples). f, Differentially abundant phages of the stress group compared to the control group identified at the class taxonomic level; data are presented as mean ± 95% confidence intervals of β-estimate (Ctr n = 10 pooled in 3 samples, Stress n = 10 pooled in 3 samples). g, In the social interaction test (SIT), stress significantly reduced social interaction as measured by percentage of time in the interaction zone with CD1 mice divided by the time spent in the interaction zone without CD1 mice (t(18) = 3.317, P < 0.01; Ctr n = 10, Stress n = 10). h, In the FST test, stress-coping behaviour measured by time spent immobile was significantly increased by stress (t(18) = −4.946, P < 0.001; Ctr n = 10, Stress n = 10). i, Stress caused a significant increase in basal plasma corticosterone collected by tail tipping (TT) before FST (t(15.68) = −2.224, P < 0.05; Ctr n = 10, Stress n = 10). j, There was a trend for corticosterone measured at 45 min post FST to be increased in the stress group (t(18) = −2.077, P = 0.052; Ctr n = 10, Stress n = 10). k,l, Analysis of inflammatory cytokines collected from supernatant after 24 h ex vitro ConA splenocyte stimulations of IL-6 (k) and IL-10 (l) revealed significant increases in the stress group compared with the control (t(18) = −2.316, P < 0.05; t(18) = −2.257, P < 0.05, respectively; Ctr n = 10, Stress n = 10). Data in d–l were compared using independent-samples two-sided t-test (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001). Data presented as boxplots display the minimum, first quartile, median, third quartile and maximum.
