Fig. 5

Microbiome correlations based on viral status. 16S rRNA sequences were summarized to the phylum level, and a Spearman’s correlation analysis was performed to assess correlations between the bacterial communities in the saliva. Two separate correlation tests were performed, one with samples that were negative for either EBV or HSV-1 (as detected by qPCR) (a) and the second, using samples that were positive for virus (based on qPCR) (b). The heatmaps display the Spearman’s rho values, with red boxes indicating rho values above 0.6 (strong positive correlation) and yellow values indicating rho values less than − 0.6 (strong inverse correlation). The maroon boxes represent no correlation. All red and yellow microbiome correlations had Benjamini-Hochberg corrected p values of < 0.05. As observed from these heatmaps, there are more bacterial correlations in saliva that are devoid of EBV and HSV-1 compared to saliva with viral shedding