2.14. Analysis of Gut Microbiota
The sequencing of variable regions of the 16S rRNA gene of members of the Bacteria domains (V3–V4) was carried out by the company Argonne National LaboratoryFor alpha diversity analysis, the indices Chao1, Shannon, and Simpson were applied. Beta diversity was assessed by Principal Coordinate Analysis (PCoA) based on the Bray–Curtis dissimilarity index and a similarity test for non-parametric data (ANOSIM, permutation number = 1000) [Metagenome functional predictive analysis was carried out using PICRUSt2 software version 2.3.0. Normalized OTU abundance was identified, and the assigned functional traits were predicted based on reference genomes using the Kyoto Encyclopedia of Genes and Genomes (KEGG). The most abundant metabolic processes and significant fold-change differences in functional pathways between groups adopting an unpaired 