His-tag |
Purification, F-SEC along with NTA linked fluorescent peptides, Purification or experiments that require surface attachment (e.g Surface plasmon resonance) |
Nickel/Cobalt/Zinc |
Small tag; easy purification |
Relatively poor specificity |
Fluorescent (GFP, YFP, mCherry) |
Tracking MP during expression and purification, purification. |
Specific nanobody or antibody |
Easy to track protein throughout expression and purification |
Large tags; more likely to affect protein function. Antibody/nanobody needed to use for purification |
Strep II tag |
Purification or experiments that require surface attachment (e.g SPR) |
Streptavidin or Streptactin resin |
High-affinity and specificity purification |
High cost of specific resin |
GST tag |
Purification or experiments that require surface attachment (e.g SPR) |
Glutathione (GSH) |
May increase MP yields, useful for pull-downs |
Propensity for GST to dimerise |
HA |
Detection and purification of proteins |
HA-specific antibody |
Small tag |
Tag is cleaved in apoptotic cells |
FLAG |
Detection and purification of proteins |
FLAG-specific antibody |
Small tag |
High cost of specific resin |
ALFA-tag |
Detection and purification of proteins |
Specific nanobody |
Small tag; choice of nanobodies |
High cost of specific resin |