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Fig. 2 | Biology of Sex Differences

Fig. 2

From: Sex and strain dependent differences in mucosal immunology and microbiota composition in mice

Fig. 2

Correlation between microbiota species and gene expression in the colon of B6 mice. Heatmap of correlation analysis of MITChip (vertical) and microarray (horizontal) datasets of male and female B6 mice. The integration of datasets was done per individual mouse (five mice per group) and gives the direct correlations between gene expression and microbiota composition from these samples. In deep red, the cluster of genes that most positively correlated with a respective group of bacteria. In deep blue, the cluster of genes that most negatively correlated with a respective group of bacteria. Five main gene clusters (1–5) and four main bacteria clusters (A-D) were identified. The cluster framed in black is discussed in more detail in the text. A positive correlation between bacteria and genes indicates that a higher abundance of the bacteria is associated with a higher expression of the particular cluster of genes. A negative correlation between bacteria and genes indicates that a lower abundance of the bacteria is associated with a lower expression of the particular cluster of genes. The functions to which these genes are related to are presented in Table 7. Note that the bacteria and intestinal genes that were selected for the correlation were the ones most explanatory for variation between sex and mouse strain, and therefore the genes in a specific cluster do not necessarily have a significantly different expression between the sexes. Moreover, a positive correlation between bacteria and genes not necessary indicates that the particular function related to these genes is upregulated, as the genes involved may also have a suppressive effect on the function. Asterisks (*) and hashtags (#) indicate that the specific bacteria has a significantly/or tend to have a higher abundance in B6 females as compared to B6 males, respectively

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