Fig. 7

Sialic acid facilitates antibiotic-induced gut dysbiosis in mice. Mice were treated as described above and the fecal microbiota was assessed using 16S rDNA sequencing on day 14. A Shannon index showed that the N, A, and AN groups had a reduced alpha diversity (n = 7–8). B Venn analysis indicated the common and different OTUs in the different treatment groups (n = 7–8). C PCoA score plots for mouse fecal samples indicating the distinct intestinal microbiota structure (R = 0.5357, P = 0.001) from the different treated groups based on unweighted UniFrac distance (n = 7–8). D Bacterial composition at the phylum level from indicated groups (n = 7–8). E The relative abundances of Firmicutes, Proteobacteria, and Bacteroidetes in the different groups (n = 7–8). Data are expressed as the mean ± SD and one-way ANOVA was performed, followed by Tukey test. *p < 0.05, ***p < 0.001 indicate significance. ns, no significance. F Bacterial composition in genus level from indicated groups (n = 7–8). G LEfSe was performed to indicate the different bacterial taxa enriched in different treated groups (log₁₀LDA score > 3). H Spearman correlation between gut microbiota and inflammatory parameters from the different groups. The red color denotes a positive correlation, while the blue color denotes a negative correlation. The intensity of the color is proportional to the strength of the Spearman correlation. *p < 0.05, **p < 0.01, ***p < 0.001 indicate significance. LEfSe, Linear discriminant analysis effect size