RNA-seq analysis of WT and STING knockout airway derived cell lines

In a screen of airway-derived cell lines, we found several that appeared to resist SARS-CoV-2 replication despite expressing the viral receptor, ACE2. We found that innate immune activation mediated by cGAS-STING and subsequent upregulation of interferons and interferon-stimulated genes underlies this phenotype. RNA-seq was conducted on WT and STING knockout (via CRISPR) SCC25, H596, OE21 and Detroit 562 and WT Calu-3 cell lines Cells were grown in 6-well dishes to 90% confluency and total RNA extracted using Trizol following manufacturer's protocol. RNA was subsequently prepared for sequencing using Illumina Truseq stranded mRNA kit. Sequencing was done on Nextseq500 platform.