Half was placed in 4 % buffered formalin for 24 h before being stored in 70%% ethanol.
The bacterial culture was incubated at 37°C for further 2 h, and cells were harvested and washed in sodium phosphate buffer by centrifugation (10000 × g, 10 min) before being stored as wet pellets at -20°C until use.
Each paraffin section was deparaffinized for 1 hour at 60°C in xylene and rehydrated in serial graded ethanol before being stored overnight in citrate buffer (0.01 M, pH 6.0) at 75°C for antigen retrieval.
After fragmentation, 57 μl of 2XGEx hybridisation buffer (Agilent) was added to each sample which was then briefly mixed and spun down before being stored on ice in preparation for loading 103 μl onto each microarray.
The HSA stock solution was dissolved and diluted to 1.0 × 10−5 mol L−1 with the same buffer, then was stored in the dark at 4 °C before fluorescence and UV vis absorption essay.
Buffers for purification were stored under argon (Messer AG, Switzerland).
Buffers were stored at 4°C until use.
We prepared a 6 × stock of 1.5 mM 12-pNCA in 36% dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO) and the EPPS buffer (the 12-pNCA was stored in the DMSO solution and combined with the buffer immediately before use).
Buffer without BME may be stored at 4°C indefinitely; BME is added just before use.
