Hsp16.3, the small heat shock protein (sHSP) from Mycobacterium tuberculosis, was originally identified as an immunodominant antigen,which possesses three functional domains typical of sHSP family, namely the N-terminal hydrophobic region, α-crystallin domain and a short non-conserved C-terminal extension.To further understand the functional assignment of these independent regions, the three functional domains of Hsp16.3 were defined and the two N- or C-terminal truncated Hsp16.3 remnants were successfully cloned, expressed and purified.In the far and near circular dichroism analysis, the results showed that these remnants expressed similar secondary and tertiary structures to that of wild-type protein.During the reassembly of wild-type nonamer, the C-terminal truncated remnant could interact with the wild-type protein to form hetero-oligomers.When trypsin is used to digest the wild-type Hsp16.3, its α-crystallin domain could resist such degradation.Taken together, these results indicate that the stable secondary and tertiary structures of Hsp16.3 are mainly kept by its α-crystallin domain.