Aptamer-Based Alternatives to the Conventional Immobilized Metal Affinity Chromatography for Purification of His-Tagged Proteins

Abstract

Aptamers are oligonucleotides or peptide molecules that are able to bind to their specific target molecules with high affinity via molecular recognition. In this study, we present development of aptamer-based affinity purification for His-tagged proteins for comparison of purification efficiency with the conventional Ni²⁺-based affinity chromatography. Thiol-functionalized aptamers able to specifically bind to His-tag were immobilized employing two crosslinking methods onto the surface of polystyrene resins. The resulting aptamer-anchored resins were successfully applied for purification of His-tagged proteins from complex E. coli and human cell lysates, respectively, and superior or at least comparable purification results to the conventional immobilized metal affinity chromatography were obtained via one-step purification.

Keywords:

• Affinity chromatography
• Aptamer
• His-tagged

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by the BK21 Program of the Ministry of Education, Science and Technology (MEST) and by the Basic Science Program through the National Research Foundation of Korea (KRF) funded by the MEST (No. 2011-0021956 and 2012-001680).

Notes

H. K. Lim and I.-H. Kim contributed equally to this work.