Figure 5.

Average abundance (%) of genus-like groups as determined with the HITChip in a conventional L-SHIME without simulation of the mucosal environment, as reported previously (Van den Abbeele et al., 2010) (n=4), as a function of the mucin colonization of these microbes in the novel M-SHIME (n=5). Mucin colonization represents the preference of a bacterial group to colonize the in vitro mucosal environment and is expressed as the logarithm of the abundance in the mucosal environment versus the abundance in the luminal content of the M-SHIME. A value <0 indicates that the microbial group rather colonizes the lumen (area A), a value >0 indicates that this group rather colonizes the simulated mucosal environment (area B).