Using various spectroscopic techniques, we studied the structure of the dioxygen reduction site of the bd-type terminal quinol oxidase in the aerobic respiratory chain of Escherichia coli. Resonance Raman and FT-IR spectroscopies identified the v(Fe 2 + -CO) and v(C-O) stretching frequencies at 471 and 1980.7 cm - 1 , respectively, at the cytochrome d center of the dithionite-reduced CO-bound enzyme. The CO ligation in the cytochrome bd complex is considerably different from those of the heme-copper terminal oxidases. Anaerobic addition of NO to the air-oxidized enzyme caused an exchange of cytochrome d-bound dioxygen with NO leading to an appearance of cytochrome d-NO EPR signal. But there is no superhyperfine structure originating from the cytochrome d proximal 1 4 N ligand in the central resonance of the NO EPR signal. These results suggest that cytochrome d axial ligand of the cytochrome bd complex is likely a histidine residue in an anomalous condition or other than a histidine residue and, therefore, the molecular structure around the dioxygen-binding site is different from that of the heme-copper terminal oxidases.