# Taxa associated with more than one clinical covariate

**URL:** <https://forum.biobakery.org/t/taxa-associated-with-more-than-one-clinical-covariate/770>\
**Category:** MaAsLin\
**Created:** [July 24, 2020, 7:32pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/taxa-associated-with-more-than-one-clinical-covariate/770 "2020-07-24T19:32:12Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 2\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![nataliapena](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/a87d85/32.png) [@nataliapena](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/nataliapena)\
**Post date:** [July 24, 2020, 7:32pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/taxa-associated-with-more-than-one-clinical-covariate/770/1 "2020-07-24T19:32:12Z")

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Hello all,

After running MaAsLin2 on 271 samples with an abundance file containing 100+ taxa and a metadata file containing a 6 clinical covariates, our output results show some taxa associated with a single covariate, and several taxa associated with more than one clinical covariate at q\< 0.05. Are these few significant covariates associated with the single taxon adjusted for confounders?

For example, taxon X shows statistical significance for association with covariate A, which is straightforward. On the other hand, taxon Y shows statistical significance for association with clinical covariates A, B and C. Does this mean that taxa Y is associated with covariate A after adjusting for confounders? And that this is the same for covariates B and C?

The fixed effects are gender, age group, tobacco use, periodontal index, dentate, and medication count.  
Here is an example of our output results for a single taxon showing statistical significance for association with a few clinical covariates:

 ![image](https://canada1.discourse-cdn.com/flex027/uploads/biobakery/original/1X/fd34bf5127a50098ea704975033bb6e078ef1c89.png)  
|metadata|feature|value|coef|stderr|N|N.not.0|pval|qval|  
|Perio\_Index|X.g\_\_Filifactors\_\_alocis|Yes|0.383845327|0.110376314|271|0|0.000591472|0.00545183|  
|Dentate|X.g\_\_Filifactors\_\_alocis|Yes|0.459811519|0.13849872|271|0|0.001027162|0.008484094|  
|Tobacco\_status|X.g\_\_Filifactors\_\_alocis|Yes|0.37819624|0.131819776|271|0|0.004450095|0.026954861|  
|Age\_Group|X.g\_\_Filifactors\_\_alocis|Yes|-0.260699101|0.114043761|271|0|0.023049404|0.103235357|

Thank you for your help!

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**Author:** ![sma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dec6dc/32.png) [@sma](https://forum.biobakery.org/u/sma)\
**Post date:** [July 31, 2020, 3:56pm UTC](https://forum.biobakery.org/t/taxa-associated-with-more-than-one-clinical-covariate/770/2 "2020-07-31T15:56:24Z")

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Hi - MaAsLin2 always runs a fully adjusted model with the provided covariates. So any association detected should be interpreted as significant while adjusting for all other covariates.