Andor J. Kiss

Education

Ph.D., Ecology, Ethology, and Evolution, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2005)

Biographical Information

I am interested in adaptation and evolution of animals from a vertically integrative perspective. More specifically, I’m most interested in how animals have adapted to extreme environmental niches. To unraveled these complex questions, my primary objectives are to understand how changes at the molecular level influence these adaptations. Projects currently underway fall into three areas:

1. adaptive and evolutionary physiology of vertebrate animals.
2. structure/function basis of long-term stability of globular protein systems – their role in adaptation and diseases.
3. epigenetics in the sensory systems of the acclimatory response.

Experiments to elucidate these areas involve:

• Comparative biochemistry of cold adapted lens crystallins and their evolutionary plasticity.
• Genome sequencing of the freeze tolerant North American wood frog – enabling differential gene expression studies to understand seasonal freeze tolerance.
• Epigenetics of the acclimatory response in both microbes and higher vertebrates.

In addition to my research interests, I am the Director of the Center for Bioinformatics & Functional Genomics, which is Miami University’s molecular biology, DNA sequencing and bioinformatics core laboratory. In addition to on-site core services, the CBFG accepts and facilitates work from outside of our academic environment (https://www.scienceexchange.com/labs/center-for-bioinformatics-functional-genomics).

Recent Publications

• Bierma, J. C., Roskamp, K. W., Ledray, A. P., Kiss, A. J., Christina Cheng, C.-H. and Martin, R. W. (2018). Controlling Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation of Cold-Adapted Crystallin Proteins from the Antarctic Toothfish. J. Mol. Biol. 18. doi;10.1016/j.jmb.2018.10.023 
• Teufel, A.G., Li, W., Kiss, A.J. and Rachael Morgan-Kiss. Polar Biol (2016). Impact of nitrogen and phosphorus on phytoplankton production and bacterial community structure in two stratified Antarctic lakes: a bioassay approach. doi:10.1007/s00300-016-2025-8
• Sellin-Jeffries, M.K., Kiss, A.J., Smith, A.W. and James T. Oris. (2014). A comparison of commercially-available automated and manual extraction kits for the isolation of total RNA from small tissue samples. BMC Biotechnology. (Accepted, October 2014)
• Rosendale, A.J., Costanzo, J.P., Kiss, A.J. and Richard E. Lee, Jr. (2014). Identification and expression of a putative facilitative urea transporter in three species of true frogs (Ranidae): implications for terrestrial adaptation. Advances in Biology. Volume 2014 (2014), Article ID 148276, 11 pages. http://dx.doi.org/10.1155/2014/148276 (Open Access).
• Posner, M., Kiss, A.J., Skiba1, J., Drossman, A., Dolinska M.B., Hejtmancik, J.F. and Y. Sergeev. (2012). Functional Validation of Hydrophobic Adaptation to Physiological Temperature in the Small Heat Shock Protein αA-crystallin. PLoS ONE. 7: e34438. doi:10.1371¬/journal¬.pone.-0034438 (Open Access)
• Kiss, A.J., Muir, T.J., Lee R.E. and Costanzo, J. (2011). Seasonal Variation in the Hepatoproteome of the Dehydration and Freeze-tolerant Wood Frog Rana sylvatica. International Journal of Molecular Sciences. 12(12), 8406-8414. doi:10.3390/ijms12128406 (Open Access).
• Kiss, A.J. and Cheng, C.-H.C. (2008). Molecular Diversity and Genomic Organisation of the α, β and γ Eye Lens Crystallins from the Antarctic Toothfish Dissostichus mawsoni. Comparative Biochemistry and Physiology. Part D: Genomics and Proteomics. 3(2):155-171. http://dx.doi.-org/10.1016/j.cbd.2008.02.002