Dietary Inflammation, Gut Mycobiota, and Microbial Cross-Kingdom Associations with Cardiovascular Health in Older Adults

Figures

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  Figure 1. Study flowchart.

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  Figure 2. Gut mycobiome composition and diversity across DII groups (n = 285). (a) Venn diagram illustrating the distribution of ASVs across three DII groups; (b) Community composition of intestinal fungi at phylum level among the three DII groups; (c) Comparison of the top five fungal phyla by relative abundance at phylum level across the three DII groups; (d) Comparison of Chao1 index; (e) Comparison of ACE index; (f) Comparison of Shannon index; (g) Unweighted UniFrac distance comparison; (h) Weighted UniFrac distance comparison; (i) PCoA based on unweighted UniFrac distance; (j) PCoA based on weighted UniFrac distance.

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  Figure 3. Gut mycobiome composition and diversity across CVH groups (n = 285). (a) Venn diagram illustrating the distribution of ASVs across three CVH groups; (b) Community composition of intestinal fungi at phylum level among the three groups; (c) Comparison of the top five fungal phyla by relative abundance at the phylum level among the three groups; (d) Comparison of Chao1 index; (e) Comparison of ACE index; (f) Comparison of Shannon index; (g) Unweighted UniFrac distance comparison; (h) Weighted UniFrac distance comparison; (i) PCoA based on unweighted UniFrac distance; (j) PCoA based on weighted UniFrac distance.

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  Figure 4. Heatmap of fungal genus-level associations with DII and LE8 scores. Color gradient reflects ZINB regression coefficients (blue = negative, red = positive). Significance markers (* FDR < 0.05, ** FDR < 0.01, *** FDR < 0.001) are based on FDR correction. Rows: clustered fungal genera; columns: DII, LE8 total score, and the eight LE8 components. White indicates missing values from non-convergent models.

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  Figure 5. Bacterial–fungal cross-kingdom co-occurrence patterns. (a) Top connected bacterial and fungal nodes; (b) chord diagram showing strongly associated bacterial–fungal pairs; (c) heatmap of bacterial–fungal associations among taxa associated with both DII and LE8 (* FDR < 0.05; ** FDR < 0.01; *** FDR < 0.001).

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  Figure 6. DIABLO-based integration of bacterial and fungal cross-kingdom co-variation patterns. (a) Global correlation between DIABLO component 1 of bacteria and fungi (red: LCVH; orange: MCVH; blue: HCVH) (r = 0.325, p < 0.01); (b) Circular plot of significant bacteria–fungi associations based on DIABLO-selected features. Red links: positive correlations; blue links: negative correlations; link thickness is proportional to the absolute correlation coefficient.

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  Figure 7. FUNGuild-based prediction of fungal ecological functions across cardiovascular health groups. The heatmap shows Z-score-standardized abundances (orange: high; cyan: low), with hierarchical clustering applied using Euclidean distance and complete linkage.