Faculty Sponsor

Patrice Bouyer

College

Arts and Sciences

Discipline(s)

Biology

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Symposium Date

Spring 4-28-2022

Abstract

C. albicans is a commensal fungus which under certain environmental cues shifts morphology from spores to filamentous and becomes invasive within the human body. During sepsis, blood estrogen (E2) becomes elevated. E2 is also known to promote tissue growth, thus we hypothesize that E2 may influence C. albicans growth. In the present work, we investigated the effect of estrogen on C. albicans colony sizes grown on yeast extract peptone dextrose (YEPD). Using bright field microscopy, images of five colonies in each condition were captured on day one and pictures of the same colonies were captured on day two. The diameter of each colony was computed using ImageJ and the surface area was calculated using Excel. On day one, one-way ANOVA shows no difference (P=0.09) in colony size for the 4 conditions tested (control 0.19±0.09 mm2, 0.1 nM E2 0.20±0.08, fetal bovine serum (FBS) 0.23±0.11, FBS+ E2 0.24±0.12). On the second day, the size of each colony significantly increased compared to day one (P<0.001, paired t-test) for each individual condition (i.e., control day 1 versus control day 2). Comparing colony size increase (surface area on day 2- surface area day1) a significant difference among the 4 conditions P<0.001, one-way ANOVA. Dunnett post hoc test shows no significant difference between control 2.41±0.29 mm2 vs E2 2.46±0.35 (P=0.8) but a significant difference between control 2.41±0.29 versus FBS 2.69±0.27 (P<0.001) and control 2.41±0.29 vs FBS+ E2 2.71±0.35 (P<0.001). In conclusion, our results show that FBS significantly increased colony growth in YEPD, but E2 had no significant effect on colony growth.

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