PilB is the assembly ATPase for the bacterial type IV pilus (T4P), and as a consequence, it is essential for T4P-mediated bacterial motility. In some cases, PilB has been demonstrated to regulate the production of exopolysaccharide (EPS) during bacterial biofilm development independently of or in addition to its function in pilus assembly. While the ATPase activity of PilB resides at its C-terminal region, the N terminus of a subset of PilBs forms a novel cyclic-di-GMP (cdG)-binding domain. This multi-domain structure suggests that PilB binds cdG and adenine nucleotides through separate domains which may influence the functionality of PilB in both motility and biofilm development. Here, Chloracidobacterium thermophilum PilB is used to investigate ligand binding by its separate domains and by the full-length protein. Our results confirm the specificity of these individual domains for their respective ligands and demonstrate communications between these domains in the full-length protein. It is clear that when the N-and the C-terminal domains of PilB bind to cdG and ADP, respectively, they mutually influence each other in conformation and in their binding to ligands. We propose that the interactions between these domains in response to their ligands play critical roles in modulating or controlling the functions of PilB as a regulator of EPS production and as the T4P assembly ATPase.The type IV pilus machinery (T4PM) in Gram-negative bacteria is made of a dozen T4P or Pil proteins including the T4P assembly ATPase PilB (or PilF in T. thermophilus and a few others) [10,[17][18][19]. Most of these proteins form a stable supramolecular complex that spans the bacterial envelope from the cytoplasm to the outer membrane [17]. PilB is proposed to dock with this stable T4PM complex on the cytoplasmic side and hydrolyze ATP to power the assembly of pilin monomers into the base of a growing T4P filament [17,20,21]. PilB and all proteins in this stable complex are required for T4P assembly and deletions of their genes result in a non-piliated and non-motile phenotype [10,18]. The C-terminus of PilB contains the structure of an AAA+ ATPase which crystallizes as a hexamer [22][23][24][25]. Based on the hexameric structures of these ATPase domains, it is proposed that PilB utilizes a symmetric rotary mechanism to hydrolyze ATP [23][24][25][26]. That is, two ATP molecules are hydrolyzed to ADP simultaneously by two protomers at the opposite corners of the hexameric ring. Another pair adjacent to these two would hydrolyze ATP next. It is proposed that the hydrolysis of ATP by the C-terminal ATPase domain of PilB results in the movement of the N-terminal domain which is mechanically coupled to the insertion of pilins into the pilus through other components in the T4PM [22]. More recently, the full-length PilB of Chloracidobacterium thermophilum (CtPilB) was shown to be a hexamer in solution with robust ATPase activity in vitro [27]. All available evidence supports the model that the ATPase activity of PilB endowed by its C terminus ...