Choosing of Affinity Tags for Recombinant Proteins and Application Progress of Tandem Affinity Purification

As a key method of protein study, the recombinant protein technology is playing an essential role in biochemical and biophysical study. The affinity purification is widely used as the most convenient method of protein purification. There are several kinds of affinity tags and purification resin in application with different characters. The choosing of the appropriate affinity purification strategy should be guided according to the specific character of the study object. With two affinity tags used in order, researchers can purify protein complex with high purity. This strategy, which is also named tandem affinity purification, is now an important method used in protein interaction discovery. Several kinds of tag matching are successfully used in previous study and some have been successfully commercialized. The tandem affinity purification has now been widely applied in all kinds of model organisms.