Table 1.
Characteristics of the participants.
Fig 1.
Intestinal microbiota community comparison of pinworm infection and mebendazole treatment groups.
a. Boxplot of alpha diversity (Inverse Simpson index) is shown in genus level. **: p<0.01 by ANOVA test. P-: pinworm negative, n = 30; P+M-: pinworm positive before mebendazole treatment, n = 65; P+M+: pinworm positive after mebendazole treatment, n = 65. b. Principal coordinate analysis of weighted UniFrac beta diversity between subjects, colored by community subgroups. c. Bacterial relative abundance distribution of the community subgroups and differentially expressed phyla. *: p < 0.05 by Kruskal-Wallis test.
Fig 2.
Visualization of differentially expressed genus-level bacteria by volcano plots.
Red dots represent significant taxa analyzed by Wilcoxon rank sum test (pinworm (+) mebendazole (-) vs. pinworm (-)) and Wilcoxon signed rank test (paired pinworm (+) mebendazole (+) vs. pinworm (+) mebendazole (-)). After p value corrections, those taxa remained to be significant (FDR< 0.05) are written in red, and bacterial species with FDR> 0.05 are written in blue. Boundaries of significant fold change and p value of Wilcoxon tests are shown in dashed lines. Dot size represents average relative abundance. a. Impact of pinworm infection on gut microbiome. Comparison was made between the P+M- group and the P- group. b. Impact of mebendazole administration on gut microbiome. Comparison was made between P+M+ group and P+M- group. P-: pinworm negative, n = 30; P+M-: pinworm positive before mebendazole treatment, n = 65; P+M+: pinworm positive after mebendazole treatment, n = 65.
Fig 3.
Changes in proportions of intestinal bacterial species after pinworm infection or mebendazole deworming.
a. Bacterial species increased after pinworm infection. b. Bacterial species decreased after pinworm infection. c. Bacterial species increased after mebendazole deworming. ***: p <0.001, **: p <0.01, *: p<0.05 by Wilcoxon rank sum test (P- vs. P+M-, P- vs. P+M+) or Wilcoxon signed rank test (P+M- vs. P+M+, paired). Bars represent mean±SEM.
Fig 4.
Associations of SIgA/ cytokine levels with pinworm infection and with relative abundance of gut bacterial species.
a. Fecal SIgA, b. fecal IL-1ß, and c. fecal IL-4 levels in P-, P+M-, and P+M+ groups. **: p<0.01 by Mann-Whitney U test. Lines represent medians. d. Correlation of the relative abundance of Prevotella with gut SIgA levels, and correlation of the relative abundance of Collinsella in the P- group (low SIgA: <80000 ng/ml, n = 5; medium-high SIgA: ≥ 150000 ng/ml, n = 22; low IL-4: < 5 pg/ml, n = 12, medium-high: ≥5, n = 11). Bars represent mean±SEM. *: p<0.05, **: p<0.01 by Wilcoxon rank sum test, corrected for the following factors: recent gastroenteritis and recent respiratory tract infection with oral medication.
Fig 5.
Gut microbial composition differences in SIgA-increased and SIgA-non-increased groups.
a. 48 pinworm (+) mebendazole (-) and pinworm (+) mebendazole (+) paired fecal samples were evaluated for SIgA levels. 24 subjects showed >1.1 fold increase of SIgA after mebendazole deworming (SIgA-increased group, marked in red), and the other 24 subjects fell in the SIgA-non-increased group (marked in black). b. Volcano plot showing differentially expressed genus-level bacteria comparing the untreated, pinworm-infected P+M- samples of SIgA non-increased group and the P+M- samples of SIgA-increased group. Significant microbes analyzed by Wilcoxon rank sum tests are shown in red dots. Boundaries of significant fold change and p value are shown in dashed lines. Dot size represents average relative abundance.
Fig 6.
The shifts of intestinal microbiota after mebendazole deworming in the SIgA-increased (a) and SIgA non-increased groups (b).
Differentially expressed bacterial genera comparing P+M+ samples vs. P+M- samples are shown in volcano plots.