Tandem Affinity Purification (TAP) Tags

Tandem affinity purification (TAP) tagging is a method to purify multimeric protein complexes that can be used under essentially physiological conditions. This technique allows subsequent protein identification by mass spectrometry or functional analysis of the proteins post-purification. The TAP method has already been used to help elucidate large networks of interacting proteins in several organisms.

Keywords: tandem affinity purification; protein-protein interaction; protein network; protein purification

Figure 1. General overview of the two-step TAP tag purification procedure. TP, TAP-tagged protein; CBP, calmodulin-binding peptide; TEV cs, Tobacco etch virus protease cleavage site; CM, calmodulin; IgG, immunoglobulin G.
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 References
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 Further Reading
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    Puig O, Caspary F, Rigaut G et al. (2001) The tandem affinity purification (TAP) method: a general procedure of protein complex purification. Methods 24: 218–229.
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    Tsai A and Carstens RP (2007) An optimized protocol for protein purification in cultured mammalian cells using a tandem affinity purification approach. Nature Protocols 1: 2820–2827.
    Vasilescu J and Figeys D (2006) Mapping protein-protein interactions by mass spectrometry. Current Opinion in Biotechnology 17: 394–399.
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Damasceno, Cynthia Maria Borges, and Rose, Jocelyn Kenneth Campbell(Sep 2007) Tandem Affinity Purification (TAP) Tags. In: eLS. John Wiley & Sons Ltd, Chichester. http://www.els.net [doi: 10.1002/9780470015902.a0020212]