William Sullivan

About

William Sullivan is a Distinguished Professor of Molecular, Cell & Developmental Biology at UCSC. He holds a B.A. from the University of California, San Diego, and a Ph.D. from the University of Washington, Seattle, with postdoctoral training at the University of California, San Francisco. His research focuses on the structural and regulatory mechanisms that drive cell division, particularly the processes involved in furrow ingression during cytokinesis and its coordination with chromosome segregation and other mitotic events. His lab employs molecular genetic and cellular approaches to understand how membrane addition via vesicles from recycling endosomes contributes to furrow formation, and how actin remodelers are recruited to facilitate this process. Current efforts include investigating the role of vesicle-mediated membrane addition in controlling furrow timing and positioning, the mechanisms of F-actin recruitment to the cleavage furrow, and the signaling pathways regulating membrane addition during the cell cycle. In addition to cell division, Sullivan's lab studies host/pathogen interactions, with a focus on Wolbachia, obligate intracellular bacterial endosymbionts found in over 60% of insect species and present in worms. His research aims to understand how Wolbachia manipulate host cell processes to facilitate transmission during mitosis and how they regulate their replication within host cells. The lab has developed high-throughput cell-based assays to identify…

Research topics

• Biology
• Genetics
• Evolutionary biology
• Cell biology
• Chemistry
• Nuclear physics
• Aerospace engineering
• Engineering
• Physics
• Computational biology

Selected publications

• The cellular lives of Wolbachia

  Nature Reviews Microbiology · 2023 · 97 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• ESCRT-III–mediated membrane fusion drives chromosome fragments through nuclear envelope channels

  The Journal of Cell Biology · 2020 · 35 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  Mitotic cells must form a single nucleus during telophase or exclude part of their genome as damage-prone micronuclei. While research has detailed how micronuclei arise from cells entering anaphase with lagging chromosomes, cellular mechanisms allowing late-segregating chromosomes to rejoin daughter nuclei remain underexplored. Here, we find that late-segregating acentric chromosome fragments that rejoin daughter nuclei are associated with nuclear membrane but devoid of lamin and nuclear pore co…

  DOI

• The endosymbiont Wolbachia rebounds following antibiotic treatment

  PLoS Pathogens · 2020 · 26 citations

  Antibiotic treatment has emerged as a promising strategy to sterilize and kill filarial nematodes due to their dependence on their endosymbiotic bacteria, Wolbachia. Several studies have shown that novel and FDA-approved antibiotics are efficacious at depleting the filarial nematodes of their endosymbiont, thus reducing female fecundity. However, it remains unclear if antibiotics can permanently deplete Wolbachia and cause sterility for the lifespan of the adult worms. Concerns about resistance…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Mechanisms driving acentric chromosome transmission

  Chromosome Research · 2020-07-25 · 21 citations

  reviewSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Clarifying Mendelian vs non-Mendelian inheritance

  Genetics · 2024-05-28 · 12 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Gregor Mendel developed the principles of segregation and independent assortment in the mid-1800s based on his detailed analysis of several traits in pea plants. Those principles, now called Mendel's laws, in fact, explain the behavior of genes and alleles during meiosis and are now understood to underlie "Mendelian inheritance" of a wide range of traits and diseases across organisms. When asked to give examples of inheritance that do NOT follow Mendel's laws, in other words, examples of non-Men…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Mitotic transmission of acentric chromosomes

  NIH · $2.5M · 2021–2030

• High-throughput screen targeting Wolbachia to combat filarial diseases

  NIH · $851k · 2014–2017

• Collaborative Research: How does an intracellular symbiont manipulate host cell biology?

  NSF · $271k · 2015–2020

Frequent coauthors

• Alain Debec

  Université Paris-Est Créteil

  20 shared

• Wendy F. Rothwell

  15 shared

• Brandt Warecki

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  14 shared

• Frédéric Landmann

  Centre de Recherche en Biologie cellulaire de Montpellier

  14 shared

• Laura Chappell

  University of California, Santa Cruz

  14 shared

• Anne Royou

  Université de Bordeaux

  12 shared

• Justin Crest

  Stanford University

  11 shared

• Makedonka Mitreva

  James S. McDonnell Foundation

  9 shared

Labs

• The Sullivan LabPI

Similar researchers at University of California, Santa Cruz

• Carol Greiderh-100
• John Tamkunh-55
• Todd M. Loweh-47