cGAS-like receptors: ancient catchers of viral nucleic acids

Living organisms have evolved conserved 'catchers' for detecting and handling molecular patterns from invading viruses. Slavik et al. and Holleufer et al. recently identified cyclic GMP–AMP (cGAMP) synthase (cGAS)-like receptors that detect double-stranded viral RNA in Drosophila. cGAS-like receptors constitute a new expanding family of pattern recognition receptors (PRRs) for viral nucleic acids.