Question

Which subunit of ATP synthase is responsible for the catalysis of ATP formation?

A. ?

B. ?

C. c

D. a

E. ?

Answer 1

The answer is A that is Alpha Unit, the full range of the nucleotide-binding sites is six, 3 of them being non-catalytic. Each site is positioned at the interface between subunits alpha and beta. Larger part of every catalytic site is composed from amino acid residues of the respective beta-subunit, at the same time as every non-catalytic site is located totally on the respective alpha subunit. the role of the non-catalytic sites might be regulatory, they may be not necessary for the catalysis. Occupation of the non-catalytic sites via nucleotides turned into shown to growth the enzyme activity. It's also feasible that binding of nucleotides to the non-catalytic sites facilitate the enzyme meeting inside the cellular.
There is powerful evidence that in micro organism of Bacillus genera the epsilon subunit can also bind one nucleotide, so in bacillus atp synthase there are 7 nucleotide binding sites.