Chen-Zhu Wang received his Ph. D. degree in Beijing Agricultural University (now China Agricultural University) in 1991, mentored by Dr. Ming-Zang Zhou. In the same year he came to Institute of Zoology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) as a postdoc with Dr. Jun-De Qin, an academician of CAS. He worked at Institute of Zoology, CAS as an associate professor from 1993 and a full professor from 1997 up to now. He had visiting research experiences with Prof. E. A. Bernays in Entomology Department in 1994 and Prof. J. G. Hildebrand in Neurobiology Department of University of Arizona in 2010, in Entomology Laboratory of Wageningen University with Dr. J. J. A. van Loon in 1998 and 2004, and in Zoology Department of University of Cambridge with Prof. M. Burrows in 2002. In 2009, he received National Science Fund for Distinguished Young Scholars from Natural Science Foundation of China.

His research interest focuses on insect-plant interactions and chemical communications of insects. His team systematically examines the coevolutionary interactions between Helicoverpa species and their host plants, including plant chemical defense to insects and vice versa, and expand the interacting insects and plants system to a multitrophic system with emphases on the impact by the third trophic level on other trophic levels and the mechanisms underpinning host shifts and the evolution of insect host range. His lab has provided the evidence for that host generalization may be an alternative evolutionary strategy apart from host specialization, which is supported by pervasive polyphagous insects like H. armigera. Moreover, for the first time, they broke through the bottleneck of interspecific hybridization between H. armigera and H. assulta, and established a unique system for genetic studies and exploring their reproductive isolation mechanisms. In the light of coevolution, his team is further studying (1) the physiological and molecular aspects of tritrophic interactions among plants, phytophagous insects and parasitoids and (2) the molecular bases of female sex pheromone signals and male olfactory responses. Besides the two closely related species, they also extend their researches to other sympatric related species such as Mythimana separata and Spodoptera frugiperda.

His lab is embarking on another system for studying plant-insect interactions, involving the cabbage Brassica oleracea L. and its specialist feeders. Glucosinolates are a group of sulfur- and nitrogen-containing secondary substances, which co-occur with myrosinases that catalyze their degradation to yield mustard oils. It is well-known that these compounds act as “token stimuli” of the diamondback moths and cabbage butterflies in host-plant selection. The team has discovered the gustatory receptor tuned to the plant hormone brassinolide in the diamondback moth and characterized the first gustatory receptor tuned to glucosinolates in the cabbage butterfly. They are leveraging genome editing in the caterpillars to study the function of olfactory and gustatory receptors involved in herbivory.

(* corresponding author)

1. Wang CZ & Lou YG (2023) Plant-Insect Interactions, Science Press, Beijing. (in Chinese)
2. Zhang SS, Wang PC, Ning C, Yang K, Li GC, Cao LL, Huang LQ & Wang CZ (2023) Sucrose taste receptors differ in larval and adult stages of a moth. eLife (in press).
3. Mo BT, Guo H, Li G-C, Cao LL, Gong XL, Huang LQ & Wang CZ* (2023) Discovery of insect attractants based on the functional analyses of female-biased odorant receptors and their orthologs in two closely related species. Journal Agricultural and Food Chemistry. doi:10.1021/acs.jafc.3c05368.
4. Shang J, Tang G, Yang J, Lu M, Wang CZ & Wang C* (2023) Sensing of a spore surface protein by a Drosophila chemosensory protein induces behavioral defense against fungal parasitic infections. Current Biology 33: 276-286.
5. Guo H, Mo BT, Li GC, Li ZL, Huang LQ, Sun YL, Dong JF, Smith DP & Wang CZ* (2022) Sex pheromone communication in an insect parasitoid, Campoletis chlorideae Uchida. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 119: e2215442119.
6. Chen Y, Wang PC, Zhang SS, Yang J, Li GC, Huang LQ & Wang CZ* (2022) Functional analysis of a bitter gustatory receptor highly expressed in the larval maxillary galea of Helicoverpa armigera. PLoS Genetics 18: e1010455.
7. Fan XB, Mo BT, Li GC, Huang LQ, Guo H, Gong XL & Wang CZ* (2022) Mutagenesis of the odorant receptor co-receptor (Orco) reveals severe olfactory defects in the crop pest moth Helicoverpa armigera. BMC Biology 20: 214.
8. Guo H, Gong XL, Li GC, Mo BT, Jiang NJ, Huang LQ & Wang CZ* (2022) Functional analysis of pheromone receptor repertoire in the fall armyworm, Spodoptera frugiperda. Pest Management Science 78: 2052-2064.
9. Guo H, Huang LQ, Gong XL & Wang CZ* (2022) Comparison of functions of pheromone receptor repertoires in Helicoverpa armigera and Helicoverpa assulta using a Drosophila expression system. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 141: 103702.
10. Yang J, Guo H, Jiang NJ, Tang R, Li GC, Huang LQ, van Loon JJA & Wang CZ* (2021) Identification of a gustatory receptor tuned to sinigrin in the cabbage butterfly Pieris rapae. PLoS Genetics 17: e1009527.
11. Yang K, Gong XL, Li GC, Huang LQ, Ning C & Wang CZ* (2020) A gustatory receptor tuned to the steroid plant hormone brassinolide in Plutella xylostella (Lepidoptera: Plutellidae). eLife 9: e64114.
12. Li RT, Huang LQ, Dong JF & Wang CZ* (2020) A moth odorant receptor highly expressed in the ovipositor is involved in detecting host-plant volatiles. eLife 9: e53706.
13. Liu X L, Zhang J, Yan Q, Miao CL, Han WK, Hou W, Yang K, Hansson BS, Peng YC, Guo JM, Xu H, Wang CZ, Dong SL* & Knaden M* (2020) The Molecular basis of host selection in a crucifer-specialized moth. Current Biology. 30: 4476-4482.
14. Tang R, Jiang NJ, Ning C, Li GC, Huang LQ & Wang CZ* (2020) The olfactory reception of acetic acid and ionotropic receptors in the Oriental armyworm, Mythimna separata Walker. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 118: 103312.
15. Jiang NJ, Tang R, Wu H, Xu M, Ning C, Huang LQ & Wang CZ* (2019) Dissecting sex pheromone communication of Mythimna separata (Walker) in North China from receptor molecules and antennal lobes to behavior. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 111: 103176.
16. Wu H, Li RT, Dong JF, Jiang NJ, Huang LQ & Wang CZ* (2019) An odorant receptor and glomerulus responding to farnesene in Helicoverpa assulta (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 115: 103106.
17. Zhang ZJ, Zhang SS, Niu BL, Ji DF, Liu XJ, Li MW, Bai H, Palli SR, Wang CZ & Tan AJ* (2019) A determining factor for insect feeding preference in the silkworm, Bombyx mori. PLoS Biology 17: e3000162.
18. Yang K, Huang LQ, Ning C & Wang CZ* (2017) Two single-point mutations shift the ligand selectivity of a pheromone receptor between two closely related moth species. eLife 6: e29100.
19. Li RT, Ning C, Huang LQ, Dong JF, Li X & Wang CZ* (2017) Expressional divergences of two desaturase genes determine the opposite ratios of two sex pheromone components in Helicoverpa armigera and Helicoverpa assulta. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 90: 90-100.
20. Di C, Ning C, Huang LQ & Wang CZ* (2017) Design of larval chemical attractants based on odorant response spectra of odorant receptors in the cotton bollworm. Insect Biochemistry and Molecular Biology 84: 48-62.

To candidates:

“There is no more humbling yet supremely joyful experience for a biologist than to have his presumptuous ideas corrected by a simple fact of nature. His curiosity about how living systems work lures him into following the faintest of clues, and when the trail seems to disappear he builds hypotheses, often one upon another. Hypotheses are really a form of wishful thinking; they evaporate when facts or actual events bring one face-to face with reality. Yet, without hypotheses and wishful thinking life would be intolerably dull.”

Kenneth D. Roeder, a neuroethologist