were cultured at room temperature in peptone yeast
glucose (PYG) 712 medium (20 g proteose peptone (BD, Sparks, USA),
1 g of yeast extract (BD, Sparks, USA), 950 mL of distilled water,
10 mL of 0.4 M MgSO4·7H2O (AppliChem, Darmstadt,
Germany), 8 mL of 0.05 M CaCl2 (AppliChem, Darmstadt, Germany),
34 mL of 0.1 M sodium citrate·2H2O (Merck, Darmstadt,
Germany), 10 mL of 0.005 M Fe(NH4)2(SO4)2·6H2O (AppliChem, Darmstadt, Germany), 10
mL of 0.25 M Na2HPO4·7H2O (Roth,
Karlsruhe, Germany), 10 mL of 0.25 M KH2PO4 (Roth,
Karlsruhe, Germany), and 50 mL of 2 M glucose (Sigma–Aldrich
Chemie GmbH, Steinheim, Germany)). The PYG medium was exchanged at
least once a week to avoid cyst formation. Acanthamoebae were detached from the culture flask by slight knocking, collected
with a pipet and centrifuged. The generated pellet was resuspended
in PYG medium and the cell number was counted using a Neubauer counting
chamber.