The nuclear gene atp1 encoding the mitochondrial ATP synthase alpha subunit of the fission yeast Schizosaccharomyces pombe was sequenced. It contains a 1,608-base pair-long open reading frame interrupted by two introns of 175 and 269 base pairs, located near the 5'-end of the gene. The initiation site of transcription AAAC was located 60 nucleotides upstream of the translation initiation codon. The deduced polypeptide sequence contains a 27-amino acid residue presequence, presumably involved in mitochondrial targeting, preceding a mature protein of 509 amino acid residues. The atp1 alleles from mutant A2313 (Bouty, M., and Goffeau, A. (1982) Eur. J. Biochem. 125, 471-477) and its related phenotypic revertant R351 (Falson, P., Di Pietro, A., Darbouret, D., Jault, J. M., Gautheron, D. C., Boutry, M., and Goffeau, A. (1987) Biochem. Biophys. Res. Commun. 148, 1182-1188) were also cloned and sequenced. A single nonsense mutation CAA-TAA (Gln173-stop) in mutant A2313 became a missense mutation TAA-TTA (stop-Leucine) in revertant R351. Glutamine 173 is located in the first putative element of the nucleotide binding site. Its substitution by a leucine residue appears responsible for the lower enzyme affinity toward ADP and for the loss of cooperativity of F1-ATPase activity.