E. coli mutant NR71 grows on succinate in the absence of an F(1) ATPase.

E. coli mutant NR71 can grow on succinate without an intact F(1) ATPase, revealing an alternative ATP synthesis mechanism.

• Why it matters: Understanding how bacteria survive without traditional ATP synthase components could uncover new bioenergetic pathways and inform antibiotic development or metabolic engineering.
• What they did: Researchers identified that NR71 harbors a stop codon in the alpha subunit gene, preventing full-length protein production, yet it still grows on succinate, suggesting an unknown ATP-generating process.
• The result: This finding demonstrates that E. coli can synthesize ATP via alternative pathways, expanding knowledge of bacterial energy metabolism and challenging the assumed necessity of F(1) ATPase for growth on nonfermentable substrates.