Fig. 5.

Salivary microbiota from the patients with periodontitis affected the gut barrier of mice. a Representative images of the HE-stained colon sections. b Measurements of the colonic crypt depth of the HE-stained colon sections. Scale bar, 50 µm. c, d Representative images and measurements of immunofluorescence-stained sections of proximal colon tissue targeting ZO-1 (red) and DAPI (blue). Scale bar, 20 µm. e, f The fold changes in the mRNA expression of pro-inflammatory factors, chemokines, and tight junction proteins in proximal colon tissue. Data were expressed as the mean ± SD (n = 4–6 per group). Statistical significance was determined using the t-test. *P < 0.05