The incorporation of self-cleaving protein elements into a variety of fusion-based purification systems; has been an important development in the area of recombinant protein purification. The self-cleaving capability of these tags has recently been combined with additional purification tags to generate novel and convenient protein purification methods. This review elucidates the properties of intein, the mechanism of the intein-based protein splicing and the progress of intein-based protein purification procedures, and recent advances in the applications of intein.