Comparing the effect of estrogen on the length of Candida albicans filaments in the presence and absence of mammalian cells

Faculty Sponsor

Patrice Bouyer

College

College of Arts & Sciences (CAS)

Department/Program

Biology

Presentation Type

Poster Presentation

Symposium Date

Summer 7-22-2026

Abstract

Previous research shows that supraphysiologic estrogen levels induce C. albicans morphology shift from yeast to invasive filamentous form. In this study, we investigated whether the level of estrogen found in critically ill patients can modulate C. albicans morphology. We measured C. albicans filament length in the presence or absence of 1nM estrogen in two  different yeast liquid media. However, the presence of estrogen made no substantial change in filament length compared (18.24±0.58 µm) to our positive control fetal bovine serum (61.27±1.11 µm). Therefore, in order to simulate the environment of the gut, C. albicans filament growth in the presence or absence of 1 nM estrogen was tested in presence of three mammalian epithelial cell lines (T84, Caco2 and MDCK). Only in the presence of MDCK cells with estrogen, filament length was longer (45.33±0.91 µm)  compared to HPBSS alone with estrogen (36.65±0.55 µm, P< 0.001)  in the absence of cells. Conversely, the presence of T84 cells alone significantly decreased filament length (28.30±3.52 µm) compared to culture media (HPBSS) alone (40.23±0.77, P< 0.001). In a simple phosphate buffered solution (PBS), here the presence of cells caused a significant increase in filament length (13.53±0.36 µm) compared to the absence of cells, regardless of cell type (0.00±0.00 P< 0.001). In PBS, estrogen decreased filament length (12.14±0.43 µm) only in presence of T84 cells compared to T84 no estrogen (14.52±0.39 µm, P< 0.001). Thus we conclude that estrogen at 1 nM has limited effect on filament length in our conditions.

This document is currently not available here.

Share

COinS