Jessica Cloy-McCoy

Medical University of South Carolina | MUSC · Department of Obstetrics and Gynecology

Endocrine disrupting contaminants, in combination with other environmental variables, are associated with altered reproductive health. Assisted reproductive technology (ART) procedures offer valuable opportunities to explore the connections between environmental contaminants in the ovarian microenvironment and measures of fertility, including impai...

Despite the widespread occurrence of environmental sex determination amongst vertebrates, our knowledge of the temporal dynamics by which environmental factors act on this process remains limited. In many reptiles, incubation temperature determines sex during a discrete developmental window just prior to and coincident with the differentiation of t...

Epigenetic modifications are key mediators of the interactions between the environment and an organism's genome. DNA methylation represents the best-studied epigenetic modification to date and is known to play key roles in regulating transcriptional activity and promoting chromosome stability. Our lab has previously demonstrated the utility of the...

Environmental factors are known to influence sex determination in many non-mammalian vertebrates. In all crocodilians studied thus far, temperature is the only known determinant of sex. However, the molecular mechanisms mediating the effect of temperature on sex determination are not known. Aromatase (CYP19A1) and SOX9 play critical roles in verteb...

During embryonic development, organisms are sensitive to changes in thyroid hormone signaling which can reset the hypothalamic-pituitary-thyroid axis. It has been hypothesized that this developmental programming is a 'predictive adaptive response', a physiological adjustment in accordance with the embryonic environment that will best aid an individ...