Fig. 3.

Effect of HFD on cecal microbial 16 S metagenomic diversity and compositional analyses in male and female mice. Microbial analyses were performed using the Quantitative Insights into Microbial Ecology (QIIME2) software package. A HFD reduced the alpha diversity index in both male and female mice. Values are mean ± SD (p-values shown for p < 0.10 based on Student’s t-tests). B Effect of diet and sex on microbial beta diversity characterized using an unweighted UniFrac model. Group differences evaluated using a permuted analysis of variance (PERMANOVA) test, with significance evaluated by Kruskal-Wallis test using Benjamini-Hochberg multiple comparison correction. C Stacked bar chart comparing the average phylum-level cecal microbiome fractional composition within each experimental group. D Group 16 S microbiome composition differences evaluated by linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size; only statistically significant clade differences are presented based on LDA threshold of ≥ 2 or ≤-2, corresponding to p ≤ 0.01. Comparisons organized by diet effects within each sex and sex effects within each diet. Numbers and heatmap color scheme represent effect sizes, with negative values corresponding to increased clade abundance in male mice and HFD and positive values corresponding to increased clade abundance in female mice and Chow diet