Experimental evolution of Drosophila C virus and cricket paralysis virus in Drosophila melanogaster host with different cGAS-STING pathway activities.

We studied the effect of the cGAS-STING pathway on shaping virus populations, using as a model system D. melanogaster infected with either Drosophila C virus or cricket paralysis virus. The viruses were serially passaged ten times in three fly conditions differing in their cGAS-STING response: wild-type, STING knock-out and immune primed flies by cyclic di-nucleotides injection. Virus PCR amplicons of passages 1, 2, 3, 5 and 10 were sequenced.