Long description

The schematic is shown in two parts. On the left is the large intestine around the outside with various foods in the middle. The colour of the large intestine changes from a pale purple on the bottom left to a blue-green on the bottom right, which represents an increase in the thickness and amount of mucus produced at various points. On the right is a section of the large intestine expanded out to show the gut wall as two columns of cells on the left and right. In the middle there are long, green, fibre molecules, and then shorter fibre molecules which have been broken down into smaller molecules by the orange ovals representing the microorganisms of the microbiota. The microbiota are then shown to produce SCFAs (shown by the circles C2, C3 and C4), which are also absorbed across the gut wall.