Fig. 8

Functional profiling of unique marker genes in differentially abundant SGBs suggests untapped functional diversity in AD microbiome profiling. The figure shows the functional characterization of SGBs identified as differentially abundant in comparisons of microbial composition between AD and WT samples, as well as across AD progression stages. To this end, the marker genes associated with the selected SGBs were assembled and analyzed using various sources of functional annotation. The classification of these differentially abundant SGBs into phylum, class, order, and family ranks is shown in the left-sided annotation columns, alongside rank-specific legends. (A) The heatmap categorizes the unique marker genes of these SGBs based on annotations retrieved from the ENZYME database. ENZYME main classes are reported as column labels. Cells are colored grey if a marker gene lacks annotations for a specific class. (B) Marker genes are also categorized according to the Clusters of Orthologous Genes (COG) database. COGs are reported as column labels. Cells are colored grey if a marker gene does not have a functional assignment to a specific COG. (C) Categorization of marker genes uniquely characterizing the differentially abundant SGBs according to the CAZy database, which provides biochemical information on carbohydrate-active enzymes (CAZymes). CAZyme families are reported as column labels. Cells are colored grey if a marker gene is not assigned to a specific CAZyme family. The heatmaps report only those EC numbers, COG categories, and CAZyme families predicted to be associated with the marker genes