The effects of the support materials (gamma-Al2O3, SiO2, ZrO2) on the catalytic performance in n-pentane isomerization have been investigated for Pt-H3PW12O40 (Pt-TPA) metal-acid bifunctional catalysts. Significant impact of supports on the catalyst activity has been found and the activity sequence corresponding to different supports was ZrO2 >> SiO2 >>gamma-Al2O3. Several characterization methods of XRD, FT-IR, NH3-TPD, TPR and BET were used to explore the nature of the supported catalysts. Simultaneously, the influence of a series of pretreatment conditions of pH, calcination temperature and calcination time for self-prepared ZrO2 on the catalytic performance related to the supported Pt-TPA catalysts was studied.