Abstract:[Objective]To construct prokaryotic expression vectors suitable for tandem affinity purification to study proteinprotein interactions in bacteria.[Methods]Two tandem affinity tag sequences,including the coding sequences of Protein G and streptavidin binding protein ( SBP),as the N- and C- terminus of fusion proteins were designed and de novo synthesized.Constitutive expression vectors pNTAP and pCTAP were constructed using pUC18 as the backbone deleted of the lacI gene.[Results]Two expression vectors pNTAP and pCTAP were successfully constructed. pNTAP showed substantial expression of the built-in tag protein GFPuv not only in Escherichia coli BL21 (DE3) but also in enterohemorrhagic Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Shigella flexneri 5a.[Conclusion]Of the two recombinant expression vectors successfully constructed,pNTAP can express the model protein for tandem affinity purification and could be used for studies of protein-protein interactions in some gram-negative pathogenic bacteria such as Escherichia coli and Shigella flexneri.