Fig. 9

Sex differences in the gut microbial predictive functionality before and after SPS. A Heat map of the microbial predictive functionality which showed pre-existing group differences in both sexes (right side: general functional pathways, left side: specific domains in each pathway), B heat map of the microbial predictive functionality which showed pre-existing group differences in males or females only (right side: general functional pathways, left side: specific domains in each pathway), C heat map of the microbial predictive functionality which showed SPS-induced group differences in both males and females. Due to technical difficulties stool samples were not collected from every single animal. Each symbol represents the value for an individual animal. Before SPS (blue bars—males control n = 7, SPS-R n = 6, SPS-S n = 5; pink bars—females control n = 8, SPS-R n = 7, SPS-S n = 5), following SPS (blue bar—males control n = 7, SPS-R n = 6, SPS-S n = 4; pink bar—females control n = 7/8, SPS-R n = 7/8, SPS-S n = 5/6)