Effect of testosterone and estrogen supplementation on the resistance to systemic Candida albicans infection in mice
- Resource Type
- Authors
- Nancy E. Buckley; Melissa Arroyo-Mendoza; Jon A. Olson; Jill Adler-Moore; Kristiana Peraza
- Source
- Heliyon, Vol 6, Iss 7, Pp e04437-(2020)
Heliyon
- Subject
- 0301 basic medicine
medicine.drug_class
Molecular biology
Immunology
Physiology
Microbiology
Pathophysiology
Article
03 medical and health sciences
0302 clinical medicine
Candida albicans
medicine
Sex hormones
Pharmaceutical sciences
lcsh:Social sciences (General)
lcsh:Science (General)
Testosterone
Candida albicans infection
Multidisciplinary
biology
business.industry
Weight change
biology.organism_classification
Pharmaceutical science
030104 developmental biology
Estrogen
lcsh:H1-99
business
Gonadectomized mice
030217 neurology & neurosurgery
Hormone
lcsh:Q1-390
- Language
- English
- ISSN
- 2405-8440
Candida species are the 4th leading cause of nosocomial infections in the US affecting both men and women. Since males of many species can be more susceptible to infections than females, we investigated whether male mice were more susceptible to systemic Candida albicans (C. albicans) infection and if sex hormones were responsible for sex-dependent susceptibility to this infection. Non-gonadectomized or gonadectomized mice were supplemented with sustained release 5α-dihydrotestosterone (5αDHT) or 17-β-estradiol (E2) using subcutaneous pellet implantation. Mice were challenged intravenously with 5 × 105C. albicans/mouse seven days after pellet implantation and monitored for survival and weight change. We observed that male mice were more susceptible to systemic C. albicans infection than female mice while gonadectomized male mice were as resistant to the C. albicans infection as female mice. 5αDHT supplementation of gonadectomized female or male mice increased their susceptibility to the yeast infection while E2 supplementation of gonadectomized male mice did not increase their resistance to the infection. Overall, our results strongly suggest that testosterone plays an important role in decreasing resistance to systemic C. albicans infection.
Immunology; Microbiology; Pharmaceutical science; Molecular biology; Pathophysiology; Candida albicans; Sex hormones; Gonadectomized mice.