Fig. 3

Serum metabolite pattern analyses. a Cluster 6, the plasmalogen and reactive oxygen species (ROS) cluster, showed a “stable” elevated trend against the HCs during the progression of the four clinical phases. b Cluster 8, the choline phospholipid cluster, showed a “stable” reduced trend over the four clinical phases against the HCs. c Cluster 10, the very long chain triglyceride cluster, represents metabolites with subtle changes at the start of chronic HBV infection but increased significantly over the progression of the four clinical phases. d Cluster 15, the long chain triglyceride cluster, grouped metabolites with a significant reduction between the HCs and the IT phase, after which their levels increased again as the disease progressed. e Cluster 13, the ALT reflective cluster, grouped metabolites following the same trend as ALT with increased levels in the IA and ENEG phases. f Cluster 23, the HBV DNA cluster, represents metabolites reflective of HBV DNA levels, which are lowest during the IC phase. The y-axis is the abundance of metabolites normalized to the overall mean of the metabolites across all samples