Figure 1.
(a–c) Study design and workflow. An overview of the study design and workflow. (a) Flowchart of the three patient cohorts from which samples were collected and defining characteristics of each cohort. (b) The workflow used to profile the microbial communities within synovial fluid and blood samples using three separate library preparation methods: 16S rRNA amplification, shotgun metagenomics, and shotgun metatranscriptomics. (c) A breakdown of the number of synovial fluid and blood samples included in downstream bioinformatic processing for each cohort and library preparation method. These diagrams were generated using Adobe Illustrator version 23.0.2 (https://adobe.com/products/illustrator) and Photoshop version 21 (https://www.adobe.com/products/photoshop).