Construction Protocol | Parasites were entrained/synchronized in vitro for three days by incubating parasites for 12 hr in darkness and 12 hr under a LED 3W lamp. On the 4th and 5th days, parasites were kept in either these alternating conditions or in constant darkness. Bloodstream forms were grown routinely in HMI-11 at 37°C in 5% CO2. Individual cultures of parasites were prepared, adjusting the initial parasite density so that at each time point parasite cultures would be at 10^6 parasites/mL. Samples were collected every 4 hr throughout two days. For the alternating light experiment, a LED 3W lamp was used to illuminate the cultures inside the incubator, alternating between light and darkness every 12 hr. Temperature was kept at 37°C and fluctuations were monitored and shown to be less than 0.1°C. RNA was isolated from 10^7 Trypanosoma brucei cells with TRIzol reagent according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Life Technologies). 1 µg of total RNA was enriched for mRNA using Poly-A beads for RNA-seq according to the manufacturer’s instructions (Invitrogen). The removal of ribosomal RNAs was confirmed on a Bioanalyzer Nano Chip (Agilent Technologies). Sequencing libraries were constructed using TruSeq RNA Sample preparation protocol (Illumina). |