Figure 2.

A. Experimental protocol 1. Gut microbiota was depleted by the oral antibiotics treatment that was started 3 weeks before aneurysm induction and continued for 6 weeks. B. Incidence of aneurysms. Depletion of gut microbiota by antibiotics reduced the formation of aneurysms. C. Symptom-free curve (Kaplan-Meier analysis curve). Depletion of gut microbiota by antibiotics improved the symptom-free survival. D. Systolic blood pressure in the mice that induced DOCA-salt hypertension, and the mice that received antibiotics or vehicle. Antibiotics treatment did not affect blood pressure levels in our model. E. Experimental protocol 2. To exclude the possibility of direct effects of antibiotics on aneurysm formation, the antibiotics treatment was started three weeks before aneurysm induction and stopped one day before aneurysm induction. F. Even when the antibiotics treatment was stopped one day before aneurysm induction, the depletion of the gut microbiota resulted in reduced aneurysm formation.