Firmicutes phylogeny and principal component analysis (PCA) plot based on Unifrac distances between the Firmicutes sequences in control and NASH subjects.

<p>(A) The Firmicutes phylogeny was reconstructed from the OTU representative sequences in the control and NASH samples, and their relative abundance was indicated by gradient color from red to blue. (B) PCA plot of controls and NASH patients. The percentage of variation explained by each principal component was indicated in the parenthesis.</p

Score plots of PLS-DA distinguishing between the microbial community data of controls and NASH patients.

<p>(A and B) OTU level, (C and D) genus level.</p

Bacterial biodiversity in NASH patients and controls.

<p>Bacterial biodiversity in NASH patients and controls.</p

Clinical characteristics of subjects with and without NASH.

<p>Continuous variables were expressed as mean ± standard deviation or median (interquartile range).</p><p>ALT, alanine aminotransferase; BMI, body mass index; HDL, high density lipoprotein; IHTG, intrahepatic triglyceride content; LDL, low density lipoprotein; NAFLD, nonalcoholic fatty liver disease; NASH, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis.</p

Abundance of <i>Lactobacillus</i> and <i>Bifidobacterium</i>.

<p><i>Lactobacillus</i> and <i>Bifidobacterium</i> were the two bacterial genera contained in the probiotics used in this study. ‘C’, ‘P’, ‘Uc’ and ‘Tx’ refer to controls, NASH patients at baseline, NASH patient at 6 months after usual care and treatment of probiotic, respectively. There is no significant difference between each pair of study groups.</p

Relative abundance of bacterial phyla.

<p>(A) Controls (N = 22), (B) NASH patients at baseline (N = 16), (C) NASH patients at month 6 of usual care (N = 9), and (D) NASH patients at month 6 of probiotic treatment (N = 7).</p

Genus level Bray-Curtis dissimilarity between fecal samples.

<p>Footnote: C, controls; P₀, baseline samples of NASH patients; P₆, month 6 samples of NASH patients; Uc, usual care group; Tx, probiotic treatment group.</p

Abundance of bacterial clades that differed between controls and NASH patients.

<p>Footnote: Relative abundance is shown in percentage. C, controls; P, NASH patients; Uc, usual care group at month 6; Tx, probiotic treatment group at month 6. *<0.05 compared to controls.</p

Correlation between the changes in intrahepatic triglyceride content and fecal bacterial abundance in 16 NASH patients over 6 months.

<p>Footnote: The x-axis and y-axis represents changes of intrahepatic triglyceride content and abundance of the indicated bacterial groups in 6 months, respectively. Solid and dashed lines are linear regression fits and 95% confidence bands, respectively.</p