Sodium butyrate attenuates high-fat diet-induced steatohepatitis in mice by improving gut microbiota and gastrointestinal barrier

Figure 4 Effects of sodium butyrate on the overall structure of the gut microbiota. A: Nonmetric multidimensional scaling (NMDS) showing the difference in bacterial communities according to the Bray-Curtis distance; B: Scatter plot of the principal component analysis (PCA) score showing the similarity of the 18 bacterial communities based on the Unifrac distance. Principal components (PCs) 1 and 2 explained 68.24% and 14.48% of the variance, respectively; C: Hierarchical cluster analysis showing that the 1 wk groups and 16 wk-control communities grouped together, and then clustered in order with the 16 wk-HF + NaB groups, finally clustering with the 16 wk-HF groups.