Recombinant proteins engineered to have a polyhistidine tail at either the carboxyl or amino terminus can easily be purified in one step by affinity chromatography on a resin carrying chelated nickel ions.  Chromatography can be carried out in column or batch formats.  After unbound proteins are washed away, the target protein is eluted using imidazole, which typically preserves the antigenic and functional features of the protein.

Protocol: Purification of Histidine-tagged Proteins by Immobilized Ni2+ Absorption Chromatography Protocol