A total of 5 × 10
8 BS cells was harvested by centrifugation at 1000 ×
g at 4 °C for 10 min and washed 3 times with PBS on ice. Cells were resuspended in 60 μl H
2O, extracted with 400 μl acetone/0.2% HCl, and the supernatant was collected after centrifugation at 1000 ×
g at 4 °C for 5 min. The pellet was resuspended in 200 μl acetone/0.2% HCl and centrifuged as described above. Both supernatants were combined, and 150 μl of each sample was immediately injected into a high-performance liquid chromatography system (
Infinity 1200, Agilent Technologies) and separated using a
reverse-phase column (4 μm particle size, 3.9 × 75 mm) (Waters) with 0.1% trifluoroacetic acid and acetonitrile/0.1% trifluoroacetic acid as solvents A and B, respectively. Heme
b was eluted with a linear gradient of solvent B (30–100% in 12 min) followed by 100% of B at a flow rate of 0.8 ml/min at 40 °C. Heme was detected by diode array detector (
Infinity 1200, Agilent Technologies) and identified by retention time and absorbance spectra according to commercially available standard (Sigma-Aldrich).
Horáková E., Lecordier L., Cunha P., Sobotka R., Changmai P., Langedijk C.J., Abbeele J.V., Vanhollebeke B, & Lukeš J. (2022). Heme-deficient metabolism and impaired cellular differentiation as an evolutionary trade-off for human infectivity in Trypanosoma brucei gambiense. Nature Communications, 13, 7075.