Vital members in the gut microbiotas altered by two probiotic Bifidobacterium strains against liver damage in rats

Table 2 The comparisons of cytokines in the three clustered cohorts in LI09, LI10 and PC groups

Cytokines	Cluster_1	Cluster_2	Cluster_3
M-CSF (pg/ml)	496 ± 31 ^a	301 ± 37 ^b	604 ± 40 ^a
TNF-α (pg/ml)	122 ± 10 ^a	52 ± 9 ^a	111 ± 16 ^a
IL-5 (pg/ml)	556 ± 54 ^a	277 ± 27 ^b	569 ± 76 ^a
IL-10 (pg/ml)	432 ± 32 ^a	195 ± 38 ^b	653 ± 124 ^a
MIP-1α (pg/ml)	99 ± 13 ^a	19 ± 1 ^b	199 ± 35 ^c
MIP-3α (pg/ml)	208 ± 22 ^a	78 ± 9 ^b	416 ± 81 ^c
MCP-1 (pg/ml)	8792 ± 2169 ^a	1054 ± 89 ^b	10,522 ± 1660 ^a
IL-1β (pg/ml)	122 ± 28 ^a	31 ± 5 ^b	82 ± 6 ^a
IL-6 (pg/ml)	131 ± 16 ^a	83 ± 38 ^a	683 ± 350 ^b

Note: Cluster_1 to 3 represented the three clusters of cohorts in LI09, LI10 and PC groups identified by partitioning around medoids clustering algorithm based on their intestinal bacterial communities (see Fig. 4). Results were represented in Mean ± S.E., and the groups with different alphabets represented significant difference between the clustered cohorts determined by t-tests

ISSN: 1471-2180