His-STING (139aa–379aa) was expressed and purified as previously described (Tanaka and Chen, 2012 (link)). Full-length GST, GST-STX17, FLAG-STX17, FLAG-VAMP8, and FLAG-SNAP29 were expressed individually with amino-terminal TEV protease cleavable GST tag in Escherichia coli strain BL21(DE3) at 25°C. All proteins were purified according to previously described protocols (Diao et al., 2015 (link)). In GST pull-down assays, GST and GST-STX17 were applied to the GST resin. Then 1 µg SNAP29 and 1 µg STING-His (139aa–379aa) were added respectively and incubated overnight. Proteins were eluted by reduced glutathione and dissolved in sample buffer for SDS–PAGE and immunoblotting. In His pull-down assay, 1 µg FLAG-tagged proteins and 1 μg His-tagged STING (139aa–379aa) were incubated overnight with Nickel NTA resin (Qiagen) and then dissolved in sample buffer for SDS–PAGE and immunoblotting.