Purification of Soluble Recombinant Human Tau Protein from Bacteria Using Double-tag Affinity Purification

Dysfunction of the microtubule-associated protein Tau (encoded by the MAPT gene) has been implicated in more than twenty neurodegenerative diseases, including Alzheimer's. As such, the physiological and disease-relevant functions of Tau have garnered great interest in the research community. One barrier hampering investigations into the functions of Tau and the generation of pharmacological agents targeting Tau has been the difficulty of obtaining soluble Tau protein in purified form. Here, we describe a protocol that uses dual affinity tag purification to selectively purify soluble recombinant Tau protein from bacteria that is functionally active for downstream applications including immunization, microtubule binding assays, and protein-protein interaction studies.