FIGURE 4.
Effect of SZ-A on alpha diversity of gut microbiota. Analysis of gut microbial diversity was performed on the basis of 16S rDNA sequencing. Rarefaction curves (A) and Shannon index (B) are presented. Shannon index (C) and Simpson index (D) were used to describe alpha diversity of gut bacterial assemblages in the rats receiving different treatments. Bacterial community compositional similarity was evaluated by beta diversity. (E) Box plots based on weighted UniFrac beta diversity with P = 0.057 (t-test) and P = 0.043 (double wilcox). (F) Block diagram based on unweighted UniFrac beta diversity (P < 0.001). (G) PCoA analysis based on unweighted UniFrac distance and nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) plots based on Jaccard dissimilarity (H) are presented. Analysis of similarities (Anosim) was used to detect differences between the groups (I). n = 5 rats in SD group, n = 6 rats in other groups, values are presented as means ± SD.
