The ATP hydrolysis of the V 1 -ATPase of Thermus thermophilus have been investigated with an ATP-regenerating system at 25°C. The ratio of ATPase activity to ATP concentration ranged from 40 to 4000 M; from this, an apparent K m of 240 ؎ 24 M and a V max of 5.2 ؎ 0.5 units/mg were deduced. An apparent negative cooperativity, which is frequently observed in case of F 1 -ATPases, was not observed for the V 1 -ATPase. Interestingly, the rate of hydrolysis decayed rapidly during ATP hydrolysis, and the ATP hydrolysis finally stopped. Furthermore, the inactivation of the V 1 -ATPase was attained by a prior incubation with ADP-Mg. The inactivated V 1 -ATPase contained 1.5 mol of ADP/mol of enzyme.Difference absorption spectra generated from addition of ATP-Mg to the isolated subunits revealed that the A subunit can bind ATP-Mg, whereas the B subunit can (3), clathrin-coated vesicles (4), chromaffine granules (5), and the central vacuoles of yeast (6). They are responsible for vacuolar acidification, which plays an important role in a number of cellular processes (1). V o V 1 -ATPases are also found in the plasma membranes of most archea (7-9) and some kinds of eubacteria (10 -12). Several studies indicate that the physiological role of V o V 1 -ATPases of some archea and the thermophilic eubacterium Thermus thermophilus is ATP synthesis coupled to proton flux across the plasma membranes (7,9,(13)(14)(15). Precise understanding of V o V 1 -ATPases would allow the comparison to F o F 1 -ATPases and the elucidation of the common essential mechanism for the coupling of proton translocation across a membrane with ATP formation. However, several problems, such as the difficulty of obtaining a large amount of pure enzyme from vacuolar membranes and an unstable V 1 moiety (17), have limited our investigation of enzymatic properties of V o V 1 -ATPases.T. thermophilus, originally isolated from a hot spring in Japan, is thermophilic, obligatory aerobic, Gram-negative, and chemoheterotrophic eubacterium (25). Its respiratory chain may include energy coupling Site I (26). This bacterium has a large amount of the V o V 1 -ATPase on the plasma membrane, instead of F o F 1 -ATPase (15).In contrast to eukaryotic equivalents, the V 1 moiety of T. thermophilus is easily detached from the membranes using chloroform treatment and ATPase-active stable complex can be obtained in large amounts (10). Throughout this manuscript, the V 1 moiety from T. thermophilus is refereed to V 1 -ATPase.