Fig. 2

Fecal and serum metabolomics analysis revealed the metabolism activity was shifted in CADASIL patients compared to healthy controls. A The result of PLS-DA for fecal metabolome. Case, n = 20; control, n = 24. Samples in color orange are from the case group, while samples in blue are from the control group. B Heat map of the significantly altered fecal metabolites in case and control groups. Data are normalized based on the peak intensity. Metabolite names were colored according to the direction of enrichment. Metabolites in orange indicate they were upregulated in the case group. C–D Bubble plot of the notably enriched KEGG pathways according to differential fecal metabolites (C) and serum metabolites (D). The point size indicates the count of differential metabolites that involve in the corresponding pathways, and the color indicates the p-value. The rich factor is the ratio of differential metabolites number annotated in this pathway to all metabolites number annotated in this pathway. E The content of thiamine including common thiamine and allithiamine (a fat-soluble form of thiamine) in serum samples from CADASIL patients and healthy controls. F The content of thiamine in fecal samples from CADASIL patients and healthy controls. G–H The comparison of the content of 4-pyridoxic acid between the two groups of samples in feces (G) and serum (H). I–J The comparison of the content of L-glutamic acid between the two groups of samples in feces (I) and serum (J). K The serum content of four differential metabolites, related to tyrosine metabolism, between case and control groups. L The serum content of two differential metabolites, related to phenylalanine metabolism, between case and control groups. E–L The content of metabolites was normalized by the intensity of metabolite peaks, and the significance was tested by Student’s t-test. *p-value < 0.05; **p-value < 0.01; ns, not significant