Fig. 4.

Patients with the opposite alteration paradigm of Lactobacillaceae frequency present different primary lesions and prognoses of NOALC following radiotherapy. The data was from nasal, oral and laryngeal cancer patients pre-, during and post-radiotherapy respectively. (A, B) Patients were divided into two cohorts based on the changes of their oral f_ Lactobacillaceae. Figures represented the increase (A) and decrease (B) of Lactobacillaceae at the family level from head and neck cancer patients pre- and post-radiotherapy named as f_Lac-up and f_Lac-down, respectively. (C, D) Linear discriminant analysis (LDA) effect size (LEfSe) results represented significantly shifts in abundance of oral bacteria in f_Lac-up groups (C) and f_Lac-down groups (D) following radiotherapy, and indicated the effect size of each differentially abundant bacterial taxon. (E-H) The abundance of most varied strain bacteria was assessed using 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing from head and neck cancer patients pre- and post-radiotherapy. Significant differences for 16S rRNA high-throughput sequencing are indicated: Wilcoxon rank sum test. (I) The percentage distribution of different grades of oral mucositis severity in f_Lac-up group and f_Lac-down group based on RTOG criteria. * P < 0.05; Chi-square test. (J, K) Body weight loss (J) and weight loss rate (K) of patients were compared between f_Lac-up and f_Lac-down group. * P < 0.05; Student’s t-test. (L, M) The changes of IL-1 (L) and TNFɑ (M) in blood plasma from the patients after radiotherapy in the two groups. * P < 0.05; Student’s t-test. (N, O) Tumor sizes from patients pre- (N) and post-radiotherapy (O) were compared between f_Lac-up and f_Lac-down group. * P < 0.05; Student’s t-test. (P) The tumor volume was calculated using nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). The arrows point to the tumor area.