Figure 3. Microbial signatures of the gut microbiota of MS patients.

(A) Barplots comparing the abundances of differentially abundant taxa between MS and control. These “signature” taxa are selected by Wilcoxon rank-sum tests and a false discovery rate of 5%. Error bars represent standard errors. Phylum, family and genus-level taxa are plotted. (B) The “signature” taxa are highlighted on the phylogenetic tree (cladogram) using GraPhlAn with red and green color indicating increase and decreases of abundance in the MS patients. (C) Biplots based on principal component analysis of the abundances of the “signature” genera. The first two components are plotted with the percentage of variability explained indicated. Each point represents a sample. The contribution of each genus to the principal components is indicated by the angle and length of the blue line. (D,E) Barplots comparing the relative abundances of Parabacteroides and Blautia between MS and control. Each bar represents the relative abundance of a sample.