Gel electrophoresis, DNA purification and Sanger sequencing
All amplified samples were run on a 1.5% agarose gel and DNA products of correct size were extracted using the QIAquick Gel Extraction Kit (Qiagen, Hilden, Germany) following the manufacturer’s protocol. Subsequently, extracted DNA was sent for Sanger sequencing using the Microsynth Laboratory service (Microsynth, Göttingen, Germany). For thetp0488 gene product, and for the IGHGCH2 and the IGHG hinge region amplicons, we utilized the respective forward primer for sequencing. The tp0548 amplicons, however, were sequenced bidirectionally using the internal sequencing primers published elsewhere (Matějková et al., 2009).