Figure 1

Influence of probiotic supplementation on the composition of the fecal microbiota. Total DNA was extracted from fecal samples collected from the 25 participants prior to and after probiotic supplement and the composition of the microbiota was assessed through 16 s rDNA sequencing. (A) Alpha diversity measures. Box- and-whisker plots comparing the Shannon index and OTU-level richness. The top and bottom of the boxes show the 75th and 25th percentile and the ends of the whiskers show the maximum and minimum values. Lines within the boxes represent median values (50th percentile). (B) Pre- and post-supplement beta diversity was assessed among experimental conditions using the Bray–Curtis dissimilarity index and displayed as Principal Coordinate Analysis plots. (C) LDA effect size of the taxa that significantly differentiate the pre- and post- supplement fecal microbiota. The LEfSe package was used to generate the LDA effect size. The following thresholds were deemed significant: LDA cut-off = |2.0|; Wilcoxon p-value = 0.05.