Novel affinity microtubes, with high ligand content and adsorption capacity of proteins, were fabricated by functionalization of the carboxyl group on the inner and outer surfaces of conductive polymer, poly(1(2-carboxyethyl)pyrrole) (PPyCOOH) microtubes with iminodiacetic acid (IDA), which affords the active site to form metal-IDA chelates used for immobilized-metal affinity chromatography. After immobilization with copper ions, the microtubes were used to recover a model protein, bovine hemoglobin, from red cell lysate in a batch manner. The protein adsorption indicates that the affinity microtubes exhibit a high adsorption capacity and good selectivity, and the adsorption isotherm fitted the Freundlich model well. Elution of the protein showed that the desorption ratio was up to 99.5% in 3 h, using 0.2 M. CH3COOH-CH3COONa buffer solution (pH = 3.6) as the desorption agent. The adsorption-desorption cycle was repeated 10 times using the same microtubes without significant loss in the hemoglobin adsorption capacity.National Nature Science Foundation of China [30870648, 30870617, 30500127]; Natural Science Foundation of Fujian Province [C0510005
