The accessory protein CooC, which contains a nucleotide-binding domain (P-loop) near the N terminus, participates in the maturation of the nickel center of carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH). In this study, CooC was purified from the chromatophore membranes of Rhodospirillum rubrum with a 3,464-fold purification and a 0.8% recovery, and its biochemical properties were characterized. CooC is a homodimer with a molecular mass of 61-63 kDa, contains less than 0.1 atom of Ni 2؉ or Fe 2؉ per dimer, and has a max at 277.5 nm (⑀ 277.5 32.1 mM ؊1 cm ؊1 ) with no absorption peaks at the visible region. CooC catalyzes the hydrolysis of ATP and GTP with K m values of 24.4 and 26.0 M and V max values of 58.7 and 3.7 nmol/min/mg protein for ATP and GTP hydrolysis, respectively. The P-loop mutated form of K13Q CooC was generated by site-specific replacement of lysine by glutamine and was purified according to the protocol for wild-type CooC purification. The K13Q CooC was inactive both in ATP hydrolysis and in vivo nickel insertion. In vitro nickel activation of apoCODH in the cell extracts from UR2 (wild type) and UR871 (K13Q CooC) showed that activation of nickel-deficient CODH was enhanced by CooC and dependent upon ATP hydrolysis. The overall results suggest that CooC couples ATP hydrolysis with nickel insertion into apoCODH. On the basis of our results and models for analogous systems, the functional roles of CooC in nickel processing into the active site of CODH are presented.Rhodospirillum rubrum, a purple nonsulfur photosynthetic bacterium, can use CO as the sole energy and carbon source during anaerobic growth in the dark (1, 2). The cooS-encoded carbon monoxide dehydrogenase (CODH) 1 from R. rubrum catalyzes the reversible oxidation of CO to CO 2 (3, 4). CODH contains a nickel-iron-sulfur cluster (C-center) and an ironsulfur cluster (B-center). CO oxidation occurs at the C-center, and the B-center mediates the transfer of electrons from the C-center to external electron acceptors (5). A nickel-deficient apoCODH, which contains all of the iron clusters of holoCODH yet no CO-oxidation activity, is obtained by growing wild-type R. rubrum on nickel-depleted medium (6). The apoCODH can be activated both in vivo and in vitro by the addition of nickel (6, 7).In contrast to the extensive knowledge about the catalytic (8) and spectroscopic properties (9, 10) of CODH, information about the biosynthesis of the nickel cluster is very limited. The basic studies on CO-dependent growth (11) and 63 Ni transport (12) demonstrate that three accessory proteins encoded by cooCTJ genes are involved in nickel incorporation into a nickel site. The cooT gene encodes a 7.1-kDa protein that shows marginal similarity to chaperone-type HypC protein required for the maturation of hydrogenase from Escherichia coli (13). The cooJ gene encodes a soluble, 12.6-kDa protein that has a histidine-rich nickel-binding domain. CooJ has been purified by IMAC from R. rubrum and has been shown to bind 4 Ni A mutant lacking a functional cooC gene requires ...