Multigroup analysis of compositions of microbiomes with covariate adjustments and repeated measures

Abstract

Microbiome differential abundance analysis methods for two groups are well-established in the literature. However, many microbiome studies involve more than two groups, sometimes even ordered groups such as stages of a disease, and require different types of comparison. Standard pairwise comparisons are inefficient in terms of power and false discovery rates. In this Article, we propose a general framework, ANCOM-BC2, for performing a wide range of multigroup analyses with covariate adjustments and repeated measures. We illustrate our methodology through two real datasets. The first example explores the effects of aridity on the soil microbiome, and the second example investigates the effects of surgical interventions on the microbiome of patients with inflammatory bowel disease.