Figure 4.
Effect of B. longum on Sparc gene expression. Ten-week-old female Sprague-Dawley rats were supplemented with 1 mL B. longum (108–109 CFU) once a day for 16 weeks, starting 2 weeks after surgery, while sham and OVX groups received 1 mL of demineralized water. At the end of the study, Sparc expression was quantified by reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) analysis. Values represent the mean ± SEM (n = 8 in each group). abcValues with different letters are significantly different at p < 0.05 based on one-way ANOVA, followed by Tukey's post hoc test.