Ni-NTA Agarose Resin

Ni-NTA agarose resin is an affinity chromatography medium used for the purification of recombinant proteins carrying a polyhistidine (His) tag. The resin consists of nitrilotriacetic acid (NTA) coupled to a cross-linked agarose bead support and charged with nickel (Ni²⁺) ions. NTA is a tetradentate chelator that occupies four of the six coordination sites of each nickel ion, leaving two sites available to interact with the imidazole rings of histidine residues. This allows His-tagged proteins—typically engineered with a stretch of six or more consecutive histidines (6×His tag)—to bind selectively to the immobilized nickel while untagged host proteins wash away. BiCell Scientific’s Ni-NTA affinity resin uses 4% highly cross-linked agarose matrix with a mean size of 90 μm and capable of operating under 0.1 MPa (1 bar/14.5 psi). The hydrophilic nature of the matrix ensures low levels of non-specific binding leading to low levels of host cell-derived impurities in the elution pool. This resin binds 40 mg his-tagged protein/mL resin and is suitable for use in batch mode, with gravity flow, or using a chromatography system.