Fig. 1

Cranberry beverage consumption does not change the overall composition of the gut microbiome. a The cohort consisted of 70 women with a history of recurrent UTIs, who either consumed cranberry beverage or placebo daily for 6 months. The stool samples, collected before and after the 6-month study period, were subjected to 16S rRNA and whole metagenomic shotgun sequencing to infer gut microbial profiles and functions. b 16S rRNA-based taxonomic profiles displaying the phylum-level composition of the microbial population indicate that the composition did not change over time or due to cranberry consumption (Wilcoxon rank sum test, p > 0.3). The sample order was sorted by the relative abundance of Firmicutes. c The species richness, based on 16S OTUs, did not change significantly with cranberry beverage consumption (Wilcoxon rank sum test, p > 0.6). d A comparison of all samples at the 16S OTU level, using principal coordinate analysis (PCoA) based on Bray-Curtis dissimilarities, indicated that the samples from the cranberry cohort did not cluster into a specific group, and the trajectories from week 0 to week 24 (shown by arrows) were scattered, indicating no common shift in microbial composition through time. The magnitude of the change between timepoints, when comparing the two cohorts, was also not significant (p = 0.51). The first two principal components (PCo1 and PCo2) accounted for 13.4 and 8.9% of the variability, respectively