Date of Submission

Spring 2024

Academic Program

Biology

Project Advisor 1

Robert Todd

Abstract/Artist's Statement

Candidemia is a prevalent bloodstream infection in the United States, with an average incidence of approximately 9 cases per 100,000 individuals from 2013 to 2017. One key challenge in finding safe and effective antifungal drug treatments is the shared eukaryotic nature of the yeast pathogen and host human body. Despite ongoing efforts to develop new antifungal drug classes, options remain limited. This study focuses on investigating the potential effectiveness of anti-cancer agents against Candida albicans, a prevalent fungal pathogen in humans. Etoposide and busulfan are two anti-cancer agents known for their ability to inhibit morphogenesis in C. albicans. Morphogenesis refers to the organism's shape and form, particularly C. albicans' ability to switch between yeast form and hyphal forms, which is linked to its pathogenesis. This study also explores whether prolonged exposure to these agents leads to the potential development of resistance. This study uses spider agar plating techniques to initially test etoposide and busulfan’s efficacy against C. albicans morphological switching. Subsequently, in vitro evolution followed by Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) was used to identify any genomic changes acquired during prolonged exposure to busulfan and etoposide. Results suggested that the anti-cancer-evolved isolates experienced morphogenetic switching, whereas the control group possibly did not, as observed in the colony morphology screen conducted on spider agar. DNA was extracted from the same evolved-isolates and sent for sequencing, and the results showed mutation and possible adaptation to an anti-cancer agent. This indicates that over time C. albicans would become resistant to the anti-cancer agents' morphogenesis-inhibiting properties.

Open Access Agreement

On-Campus only

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons License
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