Figure 6.

Impact of gonadal hormone depletion, alone or combined with postnatal overfeeding, on the sex-differences in gut microbiota, subsequent metabolic alterations and potential miRNAs involved. Upper panel: gender differences in intact and gonadectomized animals. GNX, gonadectomized animals. The bacterial taxa indicated are more abundant in the gender shown by the symbol. Intermediate panel: impact of depletion of gonadal hormones. The variables indicated are more abundant in the animal model shown (intact or GNX animals). ΔAUC, delta area under the curve. GTT, glucose tolerance test. Lower panel: effect of postnatal overfeeding on intact and gonadectomized animals (in this panel, text refers to effect found in postnatal overfeeding as compared with normonutrition). ITT, insulin tolerance test. miRNAs shown are putatively involved in the dialogue between gut microbiota and host organism in response to changes in sex hormones and nutritional status, and related with the insulin signaling pathway, steroid biosynthesis, the estrogen signaling pathway, adherens junctions and progesterone-mediated oocyte maturation.