Which four bacterial groups were reported as NOT significantly different in total numbers when comparing colonic and ileal biopsies between IBD and small cell GI lymphoma cats?

• A. Clostridium spp., Enterobacteriaceae, Helicobacter spp., Faecalibacterium spp.
• B. Fusobacterium spp., Bacteroides spp., Lactobacillus spp., Enterococcus spp.
• C. Enterobacteriaceae, Helicobacter spp., Faecalibacterium spp., Bacteroides spp.
• D. Campylobacter spp., Streptococcus spp., Veillonella spp., Porphyromonas spp.

Answer: (A)

The main idea here is how to interpret differences in gut bacterial groups when you compare tissue sites (colon vs ileum) and disease states (IBD vs small cell GI lymphoma) using statistical significance. The four groups listed as not significantly different—Clostridium spp., Enterobacteriaceae, Helicobacter spp., and Faecalibacterium spp.—show similar total numbers across both intestinal sites and both disease conditions in this study. That means, despite looking at different biopsy locations and two distinct diseases, these taxa did not exhibit a detectable shift in their overall abundance in this cohort. In other words, they appear relatively stable across the comparisons made, so they don’t contribute to distinguishing IBD from lymphoma based on total counts for these taxa.

Understanding this helps you see why the other groups might be different: taxa like Fusobacterium, Bacteroides, Lactobacillus, Enterococcus, Campylobacter, Streptococcus, Veillonella, and Porphyromonas are more commonly reported to vary with inflammation or anatomical location in feline GI disease, so they’re the ones more likely to show significant differences in total numbers between the colon and ileum or between disease states.