Ely Oliveira-Garcia

Biotic stress; cereal crops; fungal genetics and population genetics; live-cell imaging; plant-pathogen interactions; effector biology; bioinformatics.

Research in the Garcia Lab focuses on understanding how fungi causes disease in cereal crops. The empirical site of my research is focused on effector biology and biotrophic strategies used by the ascomycete fungus Magnaporthe oryzae to cause the devastating rice blast disease. My laboratory will apply live-cell imaging and functional genomics to understand how the fungus colonizes living rice cells. My research will also focus on the description of virulence mechanisms and population genetics of other relevant plant-associated fungi, such as Fusarium spp and Collelotrichum spp. As a more stable classification system for fungi emerges and the advancement in data collection and analysis continue, we are able to address fundamental questions related to the ecological and genetic factors that influence variation in life history traits among plant-associated fungi. My main goal is to underline these technical and methodological advances to illuminate the processes that fungi uses for causing disease, breaking cultivar resistance, population diversification and adaptation processes. This knowledge will help us to develop innovative strategies for controlling devastating diseases caused by plant pathogenic fungi.

Oliveira Garcia, E., von Tiedemann, A., and Deising, H.B. (2020). The measure mix matters: multiple-component plant protection is indispensable for coping with the enormous genome plasticity of pathogenic microorganisms. Journal of Plant Diseases and Protection (accepted).

Oliveira-Garcia, E., Valent, B. (2020). Characterizing the secretion systems of Magnaporthe oryzae. Methods in Molecular Biology, Springer. (In Press).

2019. Peng, Z., Oliveira-Garcia, E., Lin, G., Hu, Y., Dalby, M., Migeon, P., Tang, H., Farman, M., Cook, D., White, F.F., Valent, B., Liu, S. Effector Gene Reshuffling Involves Dispensable Mini-chromosomes in the Wheat Blast Fungus. PLoS Genetics 15(9): e1008272. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1008272

2018. Sakulkoo, W., Ose-Ruiz, M., Oliveira-Garcia, E., Littlejohn, G., Soanes, D., Correie, A., Hacker, C., Valent, B. and Talbot, N.J. A single fungal MAP kinase controls plant cell-to-cell invasion by the rice blast fungus. Science. 359: 1399–1403.  http://science.sciencemag.org/content/359/6382/1399.long 

2016. Oliveira-Garcia, E and Deising, H. Attenuation of PAMP-triggered immunity in maize requires infection cell-specific down-regulation of the key β-1,6-glucan synthesis genes KRE5 and KRE6 in Colletotrichum graminicola. The Plant Journal, 87(4) DOI: 10.1111/tpj.13205. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tpj.13205/abstract  

2016. Oliveira-Garcia, E and Deising, H. The Glycosylphosphatidylinositol Anchor Biosynthesis Genes GPI12, GAA1, and GPI8 Are Essential for Cell-Wall Integrity and Pathogenicity of the Maize Anthracnose Fungus Colletotrichum graminicola. Molecular Plant-Microbe interactions. 29 (11): 889–901. http://apsjournals.apsnet.org/doi/full/10.1094/MPMI-09-16-0175-R

2016. Chen, W., Kastner, C., Nowara, D., Oliveira-Garcia, E., Rutten, T., Zhao, Y., Deising, H.B., Kumlehn, J., Schweizer, P. Host-induced silencing of Fusarium culmorum genes protects wheat from infection. Journal of Experimental Botany 67(17):erw263, DOI: 10.1093/jxb/erw263. https://academic.oup.com/jxb/article/67/17/4979/2197605/Host-induced-silencing-of-Fusarium-culmorum-genes

2016. Zheng, H., Chen, S., Chen, X., Liu, S., Dang, X., Yang, C., Giraldo, M.C., Oliveira-Garcia, E., Zhou, J., Wang, Z., Valent, B. The Small GTPase MoSec4 Is Involved in Vegetative Development and Pathogenicity by Regulating the Extracellular Protein Secretion in Magnaporthe oryzae. Frontiers in Plant Science, http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2016.01458.

2015. Oliveira-Garcia, E and Valent, B. How eukaryotic filamentous pathogens evade plant recognition. Current Opinion in Microbiology. 26: 92-101.     http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1369527415000764

2014. Krijger J-J, Oliveira-Garcia E, Astolfi P, Sommerfeld K, Gase I, Kastner C, Kumlehn J, Deising HB (2014) Discovery of candidate genes for defeating fungal pathogens by Host-Induced Gene Silencing (HIGS). In: Dehne H-W, Deising HB, Fraaije B, Gisi U, Hermann D, Mehl A, Oerke EC, Russell PE, Stammler G, Kuck KH, Lyr H (eds) Modern Fungicides and Antifungal Compounds. Deutsche Phytomedizinische Gesellschaft, Braunschweig, pp 35-44. https://www.cabdirect.org/cabdirect/abstract/20153047543

2014. Lange, M., Oliveira-Garcia, E., Deising, H. B., Peiter, E. A modular plasmid system for protein co-localization and bimolecular fluorescence complementation in filamentous fungi. Current Genetics, 60: 343-350. http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs00294-014-0429-y

2013. Oliveira-Garcia, E and Deising, H.B. Infection structure-specific expression of β-1,3-glucan synthase is essential for pathogenicity of Colletotrichum graminicola and evasion of glucan-triggered immunity in maize. The Plant Cell. 25: 2356–2378. http://www.plantcell.org/content/early/2013/06/27/tpc.112.103499