In F 1 -ATPase, the smallest known motor enzyme, unidirectional rotation of the central axis subunit ␥ is coupled to ATP hydrolysis. In the present study, we report the redox switching of the rotation of this enzyme. For this purpose, the switch region from the ␥ subunit of the redox-sensitive chloroplast F O F 1 -ATP synthase, which is located on the mitochondrial inner membranes, chloroplast thyalkoid membranes, and bacterial plasma membranes, synthesizes ATP, which is known as the universal energy "coin" in the cell, from ADP and phosphate at the expense of the proton gradient across the membranes (1). The water-soluble part of ATP synthase, the F 1 region, consists of five subunits with a composition of ␣ 3  3 ␥ 1 ␦ 1 ⑀ 1 (2). The hydrophobic F O part is composed of a 1 b 2 c 10 -14 (3-5). The subcomplex of F 1 part, ␣ 3  3 ␥, is the minimum complex that is capable of ATP hydrolysis (6). Rotation of the ␥ subunit in the ␣ 3  3 hexagon was first postulated by P. D. Boyer and co-workers (8) from the analysis of the cooperative kinetics of F 1 -ATPase. A high resolution x-ray structure of a major part of the bovine heart mitochondrial F 1 (7) revealed an alternating hexagonal arrangement of the ␣ 3  3 ring with the ␥ subunit as a central axis. Then the rotation of ␥ in the central cavity of ␣ 3  3 was suggested by biochemical experiments (10), and finally, direct visualization of the rotation of an actin filament attached to the ␥ subunit of F 1 showed unequivocally that ␥ rotates unidirectionally during ATP hydrolysis (11)(12)(13)(14).The chloroplast ATP synthase has basically the same structure as those from other sources. However the enzyme activity of chloroplast ATP synthase (CF O CF 1 ) from higher plants is modulated in a unique way, reduction of a disulfide bridge in the ␥ subunit (15, 16). In the solubilized CF 1 part, the reduction of this disulfide bond, which is located in a switch region on ␥ unique to chloroplast ATP synthase, strongly enhances the ATP hydrolysis activity (ATPase activity). This switch region consists of 37 amino acid residues (Pro 194 -Ile 230 in case of the spinach chloroplast enzyme) containing two cysteine residues, but its structure is unknown, and there are no data available on how reduction of the disulfide bond leads to activation of the enzyme. Such redox regulation is a common property of socalled thiol enzymes in the chloroplasts like glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase (17), fructose-1,6-bisphosphatase (18), sedoheptulose-1,7-bisphosphatase (19), phosphoribulokinase (20), and NADP-malate dehydrogenase (21). The chloroplast thioredoxin, which is reduced by electron flow from photosystem, plays a main role in this regulation system (21). However, to our knowledge there are no data available, neither for chloroplast enzymes nor for enzymes from other organelles, on whether regulation affects the reaction rate of a single enzyme molecule or influences the number of active enzyme molecules. To address this question, observation of the rotation of F 1 -ATPase is th...