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Molecular Motors

Turning the ATP motor

Nature volume 427, pages 407–408 (2004)Cite this article

A long-standing question regarding ATP synthase — a cellular energy-generator — has been which direction it spins in when generating ATP. Some elegant experiments have revealed the answer.

The ATP synthase not only lays claim to being nature's smallest rotary motor, but also has an extremely important role in providing most of the chemical energy that aerobic and photosynthetic organisms need to stay alive. On page 465 of this issue, Itoh and colleagues1 describe how they used electromagnets to force this motor to rotate and generate chemical energy (adenosine trisphosphate, ATP). In the process, they determined the direction of rotation during ATP synthesis.

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Figure 1: The binding-change model for F0F1 ATP synthase.

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  1. the Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, SUNY Upstate Medical University, Syracuse, 13210, New York, USA

    Richard L. Cross

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  1. Richard L. Cross
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Cross, R. Turning the ATP motor. Nature 427, 407–408 (2004). https://doi.org/10.1038/427407b

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/427407b

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