Figure 8.

GPC supplementation shifts the gut microbial community. (A,B) alpha-diversity: Chao1 (A) and Fisher index (B) of gut microbiota community structure in female C57BL/6J Apoe^−/− mice after 16 weeks on GPC supplemented (n = 11) or control chow diet (n = 10). Cecal DNA was extracted for 16S rRNA gene sequencing. (C) Principal coordinates analysis of weighted UniFrac distances of microbial community with proportion of variance explained by each principal coordinate axis denoted in each axis label. (D) LEfSe identified cecal microbial taxa enriched in GPC-fed mice vs. control chow diet-fed mice (p < 0.05 by the Kruskal–Wallis test, log₁₀(LDA score) > 2). (E) RT-PCR quantitation of choline TMA lyase C subunit (CutC) encoding bacterium relative abundance in female C57BL/6J Apoe^−/− mice fed either GPC supplemented chow or control chow diet. The relative abundance of CutC-containing bacteria was normalized to that of control chow diet feeding mice. The top panel in (E) is the confirmation of specificity for CutC and 16S rRNA gene PCR products from two typical samples by 2% agarose gel electrophoresis with no DNA template as negative control (N) and 100 bp DNA ladder as marker (M). p values were calculated by Wilcoxon rank sum test.