⁎Among heme-based sensors, recent phylogenomic and sequence analyses have identified 34 globin coupled sensors (GCS), to which an aerotactic or gene-regulating function has been tentatively ascribed. Here, the structural and biochemical characterization of the globin domain of the GCS from Geobacter sulfurreducens (GsGCS 162 ) is reported. A combination of X-ray crystallography (crystal structure at 1.5 Å resolution), UV-vis and resonance Raman spectroscopy reveals the ferric GsGCS 162 as an example of bishistidyl hexa-coordinated GCS. In contrast to the known hexa-coordinated globins, the distal heme-coordination in ferric GsGCS 162 is provided by a His residue unexpectedly located at the E11 topological site. Furthermore, UV-vis and resonance Raman spectroscopy indicated that ferrous deoxygenated GsGCS 162 is a penta-/hexa-coordinated mixture, and the heme hexa-to-penta-coordination transition does not represent a rate-limiting step for carbonylation kinetics. Lastly, electron paramagnetic resonance indicates that ferrous nitrosylated GsGCS 162 is a penta-coordinated species, where the proximal HisF8-Fe bond is severed. Abbreviations used: GCS, globin-coupled sensor; GsGCS 162 , globin domain of GCS from Geobacter sulfurreducens; PAS, an acronym formed from the names of the first three proteins (the Period clock protein of Drosophila, the Aryl hydrocarbon receptor nuclear translocator of vertebrates, and the Single-minded protein of Drosophila) recognized as sharing such sensor motif; CooA, transcriptional activator of coo operons encoding proteins required to metabolize CO as a sole energy