Subject characteristics.

<p>Subject characteristics.</p

Microbiota composition and functionality characteristics of unaffected relatives of children with Crohn’s disease, their unaffected relatives and healthy controls with no familial history of IBD.

<p>A) Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) plot using Bray-Curtis dissimilarity index which considers bacterial taxon presence and abundance. B) Non-metric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) plot using Unifrac phylogenetic distances which takes into account the phylogenetic distances (relatedness) of the bacterial taxa, without accounting for their abundance; The ellipses in A and B represent the 95% confidence intervals based on the standard errors of the average of the axis scores for each group using the ordiellipse function of the R's vegan package C) Local contribution of β-diversity (LCBD) analysis which considers the contribution of each sample to the total OTU β-diversity, calculated from all study samples together (% of total community dispersion); D) Shannon α-diversity (expressed in richness equivalents) based on operational taxonomic unit assignments (OTU) (p = 0.039 when accounting for the genetic relatedness of the participants in the CDR and CD group using paired data analysis); E) Diversity of KEGG metabolic pathways based on metagenomics sequencing (p = 0.127 when accounting for the genetic relatedness of the participants in the CDR and CD group using paired data analysis); F) Faecal short chain fatty acids (μmol/g and % of total SCFA); The size of the dot is proportional to the concentration of faecal calprotectin; CD: Children with Crohn’s disease, CDR: Unaffected blood relatives of children with Crohn’s disease, HUC: Healthy controls unrelated to patients with inflammatory bowel disease.</p

Log-relative abundances of OTUs which differentiated unaffected relatives of children with Crohn’s disease and healthy controls with no familial history of the disease.

<p>Taxonomic classification is given at the highest level of phylogenetic resolution. Within red box frames those OTUs which were identical to the ones which differed between children with CD and healthy paediatric controls in a previous study [<a href="http://www.plosone.org/article/info:doi/10.1371/journal.pone.0172605#pone.0172605.ref003" target="_blank">3</a>]^. CDR: Unaffected blood relatives of children with Crohn’s disease, HUC: Healthy controls unrelated to patients with inflammatory bowel disease.</p