Figure 4

Five-day feeding of selected probiotics significantly increases microbiome diversity and SCFAs production in the mouse gut. (a) PCA analysis showing the β-diversity clustering of gut microbiome in mice after 5 days of once-daily feeding of lactobacilli, enterococci and their combination (cocktail) and non-treated control mice on 0d (before treatment), 5d, 2wks, 3wks and 5wks (after 1, 2 and 4 weeks of treatment). (b) Alpha-diversity (Shannon index) in mice undergoing 5 days of once-daily feeding of lactobacilli, enterococci and cocktail compared to control mice. (c) Major phyla changes upon 5 days of once-daily feeding of probiotic treatments up to 5 weeks. (d) Cladogram showing microbial signatures upon 5 days of once-daily feeding of lactobacilli, enterococci and cocktail compared to control mice. (e) SCFAs including lactate, acetate, propionate and butyrate levels after 5 days of once-daily feeding of probiotics treatment over the time course up to 30 days. Each dot in PCA analysis represents 2 samples pooled from 2 independent mice from same group, hence gut microbiome data will have this factor in all the data analyses at different time-points. SCFA data are duplicates of 5–6 and standard error of means. Values with ^*<0.05, ^**0.01 and ^***0.001 are significantly different within the same group compared to 0 h time point. Values with ● < 0.05, ●● < 0.01 are significantly different compared to controls at the same time points.