Oxidative phosphorylation in Escherichia coli is catalyzed by an electron transport system, which generates a proton electrochemical gradient across the cytoplasmic membrane and an ATP synthase enzyme, catalyzing the conversion of ADP and Pi to ATP at the expense of a gradient of sufficient magnitude. The ATP synthase of this organism is similar to other bacteria, the mitochondria of eukaryotes, and the thylakoids of green plants. [1][2][3][4][5][6][7] Two functionally distinct parts of the protein are: (i) the F 0 sector, comprised of three polypeptide chains known as a, b and c in forming a transmembrane proton channel, and (ii) F 1 sector, containing five polypeptide chains with relative stoichiometry α 3 β 3 γδε, in E. coli.Many investigations on F 1 -ATPases from diverse origins, bacteria, thylakoids and mitochondria, established that the composition of F 1 -ATPases comprised of three catalytic sites and a further set of non-catalytic sites.7,8 The non-catalytic sites had the characteristics of slow exchange of the bound ligand for ligands in the medium (t 1/2~h ours) with considerable specificity for adenine nucleotides. 2,5,6 In contrast, the catalytic sites were not adenine-specific and revealed rapid exchanges of bound ligand with ligands in the medium (t 1/2 ~ minutes). 5,9,10