Figure 1.

Lead exposure disturbed the trajectories of gut microbiome development as assessed by beta diversity metrics (A). Lead exposure also reduced/inhibited the phylogenetic diversity of the gut bacteria as examined using alpha diversity metrics (B). Here, 16S rRNA gene sequencing was performed, followed by bacterial taxonomic assignment via QIIME. Beta diversity evaluated the diversity in the microbial community between samples, whereas alpha diversity reflected the species richness.