Programmed death-1 (PD-1), a member of CD28 family, is able to negatively regulate the TCR complex-initiated signaling by interacting with its cognate ligands (PD-L1 and/or PD-L2). PD-1/PD-L1 pathway plays an important role in down-regulating the effective phase of adaptive immune responses and the blockade of this pathway has been proved to enhance antiviral and antitumoral immunity, suggesting that it might be a potential target for the development of therapies to improve T cell responses in patients with virus infections or malignancies. In present study, the extracellular domain of human PD-1 with a carboxyl terminal His-tag (designated as sPD-1) was expressed as inclusion bodies in Escherichia coli. The product was on-column refolded, purified by immobilized metal affinity chromatography, and characterized by Western blotting. Furthermore, the soluble PD-1 with high purity possessed specific binding activity with its cognate ligand PD-L1, and the dissociation constant was 0.43 nmol/L as determined by Scatchard plot analysis. These results suggest that refolded sPD-1 from prokaryotic cells may be of therapeutic interest in enhancing antivirus and antitumoral immune responses.