Cluster analysis of the DGGE profiles of the predominant fecal bacteria of 15 patients in follow-up samples.

Abstract

<p>Clustering was performed using Dice’s coefficient and UPGMA. <b>(a)</b> Cluster analysis of the DGGE profiles from the different groups. The metric scale denotes the degree of similarity. <b>(b)</b> MDS analysis of the cluster shown in (a). The plot is an optimized 3D representation of the similarity matrix obtained from BioNumerics software, and the x-, y-, and z-axes separately represent three different dimensions: Dim 1, Dim 2, and Dim 3. The Euclidean distance between two points reflects similarity. <b>(c)</b> PCA of fecal microbiota based on the DGGE fingerprinting shown in (a). The plot is reoriented to maximize variation among lanes along the first three principal components (the contributions 11.5, 20.0 and 26.7, respectively) obtained from BioNumerics software.</p