Fig. 2

The damage of colon, hippocampus and microorganism composition in lactation LF feeding deficient mice after CUMS model. A Crypt depth in the colon of mice and representative images of H.E-stained colonic sections, 200 × , scale bar = 100 μm. n = 5–8. B Zo-1, Occludin mRNA expression in the colon. n = 6–8. C Inflammation infiltration score and representative images in the colon, 200 × , scale bar = 100 μm. n = 6–8. D Activation of LPS-TLR4 signaling pathway in the colon. n = 6–8. E Activation of LPS-TLR4 signaling pathway and microglia in the hippocampus. n = 6–8. F The mRNA expression of BDNF signaling pathway in the hippocampus. n = 4–8. G The alpha diversity analysis, including Shannon diversity and Chao diversity, Wilcoxon rank-sum test. n = 8. H PCoA analysis results of male and female CUMS mice and evaluated using Analysis of Similarities (ANOSIM). n = 8. I Analysis on the composition of microbial community at phylum level. n = 8. J Student’s t-test on Phylum level of male and female depressive-like behavior mice. n = 8. K Linear discriminant analysis (LDA > 3) scores derived from LEfSe analysis at genus level of male and female depressive-like behavior mice. n = 8. L Heatmap of Spearman’s correlation between gut microbiota (at the genus level) and depressive-like behavior related indices. n = 8. Data are presented as mean ± standard error. A-F Two-way ANOVA with multiple comparisons and two-tailed t test for normally distributed data, two-tailed Mann–Whitney test for non-normally distributed data, *P < 0.05; **P < 0.01; ***P < 0.001