About

Andrew Y. Gracey

Assistant Professor of Biological Sciences

Contact Information
E-mail: gracey@usc.edu
Phone: (213) 740-2288
Office: AHF 107

LINKS
Personal Website
 

Education
Ph.D. Comparative & Molecular Physiology, University of Liverpool, UK
 

Description of Research

Summary Statement of Research Interests
The primary focus of Andrew Gracey's research is to understand the effect of factors such as temperature, oxygen concentration, and salinity on the physiological processes of animals, and how these organism-environment interactions affect performance, survival and distribution.  His studies explore the nature of adaptive responses and the evolutionary development of stress tolerance in a range of species spanning multiple phyla, including freshwater and marine fish, nematode worms, bivalve mollusks and hibernating mammals.  Since phenotype results ultimately from the combined expression of genes and gene complexes, understanding patterns of gene expression evoked during environmental change yields insights regarding the mechanisms underlying adaptation from the cellular to the whole organism level.  A key tool deployed in his research is the measurement of mRNA transcript levels by microarray hybridization.  The microarray-based approach monitors the expression of many thousands of genes simultaneously, providing a broad view of the transcriptional changes that accompany alterations in physiological state.  The utility of this approach is that it allows hitherto unknown responses to be discovered and new hypotheses to be formed.  The identification of differentially expressed genes in response to environmental change is thus an important first step in understanding the role of the genome within the complex natural history of an organism. 
 

Affiliations with Research Centers, Labs, and Other Institutions
Wrigley Institute for Environmental Studies,http://wrigley.usc.edu
 

Publications

Journal Article
Gracey, A. Y., Chaney, M. L., Boomhower, J. P., Tyburczy, W. R., Connor, K., Somero, G. N. (2008). Rhythms of Gene Expression in a Fluctuating Intertidal Environment. Current Biology. Vol. 18 (19), pp. 1501-1507.
Evans, H., De Tomaso, A., Quail, M., Rogers, J., Gracey, A. Y., Cossins, A. R., Berenbrink, M. (2008). Ancient and modern duplication events and the evolution of stearoyl-CoA desaturases in teleost fishes. Physiological Genomics. Vol. 35, pp. 18-29.
Gracey, A. Y. (2008). The Gillichthys mirabilis Cooper array: a platform to investigate the molecular basis of phenotypic plasticity. Journal of Fish Biology. Vol. 72, pp. 2118-2132.
Williams, D. R., Li, W., Hughes, M. A., Gonzalez, S. F., Vernon, C., Vidal, M. C., Jeney, Z., Jeney, G., Dixon, P., McAndrew, B., Bartfai, R., Oban, L., Trudeau, V., Rogers, J., Matthews, L., Fraser, E. J., Gracey, A. Y., Cossins, A. R. (2008). Genomic resources and microarrays for the common carp Cyprinus carpio L. Journal of Fish Biology. Vol. 72, pp. 2095-2117.
Olohan, L. A., Li, W., Wulff, T., Jarmer, H., Gracey, A. Y., Cossins, A. R. (2008). Detection of anoxia-responsive genes in cultured cells of the rainbow trout Oncorhynchus mykiss (Walbaum), using an optimized, genome-wide oligoarray. Journal of Fish Biology. Vol. 72, pp. 2170-2186.
McLean, L., Young, I. S., Doherty, M. K., Robertson, D. H., Cossins, A. R., Gracey, A. Y., Beynon, R. B., Whitfield, P. D. (2007). Global Cooling: Cold acclimation and the expression of soluble proteins in carp skeletal muscle. Proteomics. Vol. 15, pp. 2667-81.
Ahdesmaki, M., Lahdesmaki, H., Gracey, A., Schmulevich, L., Yli-Harja, O. (2007). Robust regression for periodicity detection in non-uniformly sampled time-course gene expression data. BMC Bioinformatics. Vol. 8, pp. 233.
Gracey, A. Y. (2007). Interpreting physiological responses to environmental change through gene expression profiling. J. Exp. Biol.. Vol. 210, pp. 1593-1601.
Haywood, S. A., Murray, P. A., Cossins, A. R., Gracey, A. Y. (2007). Beyond the lipid hypothesis: mechanisms underlying phenotypic plasticity in inducible cold tolerance. Advances in experimental medicine and biology. Vol. 594, pp. 132-42.
Haywood, S. A., Murray, P. A., Govan, G. G., Gracey, A. Y., Cossins, A. R. (2007). An explicit test of the phospholipid saturation hypothesis of acquired cold tolerance in Caenorhabditis elegans. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. Vol. 104, pp. 5489-5494.
Buckley, B. A., Gracey, A. Y., Somero, G. N. (2006). The cellular response to heat stress in the goby Gillichthys mirabilis: a cDNA microarray and protein-level analysis. J. Exp. Biol.. Vol. 209, pp. 2660-2667.
Cossins, A. R., Fraser, E. J., Hughes, M., Gracey, A. Y. (2006). Post-genomic approaches to understanding the mechanisms of environmentally induced phenotypic plasticity. J. Exp. Biol.. Vol. 209, pp. 2328-2336.
Fraser, E. J., Vieira de Mello, L., Ward, D., Rees, H. R., Williams, D., Gracey, A. Y., Cossins, A. R. (2006). Hypoxia-inducible myoglobin expression in nonmuscle tissues. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. Vol. 103, pp. 2977-2981.
Williams, D., Epperson, L., Li, W., Hughes, M., Taylor, R. R., Rogers, J., Martin, S., Cossins, A. R., Gracey, A. Y. (2005). Seasonally hibernating phenotype assessed through transcript screening. Physiol Genomics. Vol. 24, pp. 13-22..
Gracey, A. Y., Fraser, E. J., Li, W., Fang, Y., Taylor, R. R., Rogers, J., Brass, A. (2004). Coping with cold: An integrative, multitissue analysis of the transcriptome of a poikilothermic vertebrate. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. Vol. 101, pp. 16970-16975.
Gracey, A. Y., Cossins, A. R. (2003). Application of microarray technology in environmental and comparative physiology. Annu. Rev. Physiol. Vol. 65, pp. 231-59.
Cossins, A. R., Murray, P. A., Gracey, A. Y., Logue, J., Polley, S., Caddick, M., Brooks, S., Postle, T., Maclean, N. (2002). The role of desaturases in cold-induced lipid restructuring. Biochem. Soc. Trans. Vol. 30(6), pp. 1082-6.
Gracey, A. Y., Troll, J., Somero, G. N. (2001). Hypoxia-induced expression profiling in the euryoxic fish Gillichthys mirabilis. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA. Vol. 94, pp. 1993-1998.
Tiku, P. E., Gracey, A. Y., Macartney, A. I., Beynon, R. B., Cossins, A. R. (1996). Cold-inducible expression of desaturase by transcriptional and post-translational mechanisms. Science. Vol. 271, pp. 815-818.
 

Service to the Profession

Editorships and Editorial Boards
Editorial Board, Marine Biotechnology, 01/01/2007-12/31/2009  
Editorial Board, GENE, Functional Genomics, 01/01/2006-12/31/2008  
Editorial Board, American Journal of Physiology: Regulatory, Integrative, and comparative physiology, 07/01/2007-06/30/2008  
 

Professional Memberships
Sigma Xi, 09/13/2006-  
 
 
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