Fecal Microbiome Does Not Represent Whole Gut Microbiome

Figure 4

The comparison of microbial diversity at different locations of the GI tracts by β-diversity analysis. (a) Heatmap of the microbial composition and relative abundance in each location of the GI tracts at the genus level based on the Bray-Curtis distance matrix. (b) β-diversity centroid for each GI site. (c) Principal coordinate analysis ( and ). (d) NMDS plots show the difference of microbiome in each location of the GI tracts. The sampling locations within the GI tract were determined based on the anatomical feature: the stomach, the duodenum (small intestine_1), the jejunum (small intestine_2 ~ small intestine_5), the ileum (small intestine_6), the cecum (large intestine_1), the colon (large intestine_2 ~ large intestine_6), and the rectum (large intestine_7). The anatomical differences between each location are shown in Figure S1.

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