Together with detection of a highly significant ( P < 0.0001, by unweighted UniFrac) difference in beta-diversity distance in the TWK10-hk group after administration relative to the TWK10 group, these findings indicate that six-week administration of heat-killed TWK10 has a stronger effect in rearranging microbial community structures than viable TWK10 ( Figure 3 B,C).
After six weeks of administration, the β-diversity profiles of fecal microbial composition in subjects showed a strong trend toward significant difference between the TWK10 and TWK10-hk groups (PERMANOVA, P = 0.063), based on NMDS analysis with unweighted UniFrac metric ( Figure 3 B).
β-diversity profiles in the TWK10 group after administration showed a marginally significant difference ( p = 0.072, by unweighted UniFrac distance) to those in the Control group after administration ( Figure 3 C), while those in the TWK10-hk group differed significantly from those in the Control group (PERMANOVA, P = 0.036, by NMDS with unweighted UniFrac metric; P = 0.072 by unweighted U
In the TWK10 group after six weeks of administration, genus-level analysis revealed a significant decrease in Lachnospira abundance ( P = 0.022), a decreasing trend in Faecalibacterium abundance ( P = 0.077), and a significant increasing trend in Akkermansia abundance ( P = 0.114), compared with before administration.
Further, we detected a weakly significant ( P = 0.109) increase of Prevotellaceae , predominantly comprising the genus, Prevotella , following the administration of viable TWK10.
In the TWK10-hk group after 6 weeks of administration, a significant increasing trend ( P = 0.072) in the abundance of Enterobacteriaceae , a significant decrease ( P = 0.030) in the abundance of Peptostreptococcaceae , a significant decreasing trend ( P = 0.107) in the abundance of Lachnospireaceae , and an increasing trend ( P = 0.148) in the abundance of Atopobiaceae were observed as compared with before administration ( Figure S1B ).