FIG 3.

The interplay of plaque taxa, plaque metabolites, and salivary cytokines during gingivitis retrogression, onset, and progression. (a) Network analysis of microbial taxa and metabolites in the temporal program consisting of NG-baseline-EG. Negative correlations are shown in green, positive correlations are in blue, and predictive taxa are in gray. Edge weights represent the strength of correlation. Rothia and betaine have the largest number of connections (i.e., they are the hub nodes) and are highly correlated with each other. For the metabolite nodes, “pos” and “neg” indicate acquisition by positive and negative modes in the nontargeted metabolomic approach, while “TSQ” indicates acquisition from the targeted metabolomic approach. (b) Temporal covariation of betaine and Rothia during gingivitis retrogression and induction. The bar plot indicates the clinical symptoms (i.e., mean bleeding) at each of the time points (days −21, 0, 1, 3, 7, 14, and 28). The colors of the bars show statistical significance of bleeding between a given time point and baseline (day 0): blue, significant; gray, not significant.