Fig. 3

Multiple early events and pre-school lifestyle associated with the school-age gut microbiota. a PCA showing the multivariate variation of children and the major contributions of different factors to PC1 and PC2. A total of 18 factors including early events and pre-school lifestyle (Additional file 1: Table S1) were subjected to PCA, and those factors with component scores for PC1 or PC2 ≥ 0.2 were shown as major contributors. Box plots showing the overall distribution of PC1 and PC2 scores within each enterotype (#P<0.05; Wilcoxon rank-sum test). b Significant major contributors in PCA between enterotypes (#P < 0.05, Wilcoxon rank-sum test; *P < 0.05, Dunn’s post-hoc test). The details of statistical results for all factors are shown in Additional file 1: Table S11. c PERMANOVA of the influence of single-factor early events and pre-school lifestyle on the gut microbial gene profile in the entire cohort and within each enterotype (#P < 0.05; * adjusted P < 0.05)