Two major azoverdins were isolated from the cultures of Azomonas macroo'togenes ATCC 12334 grown in irondeficient medium. Their structures have been established using fast atom bombardment-mass spectroscopy, homonuclear and heteronuclear two-dimensional 15N, 13C and IH NMR, and circular dichroism techniques. These siderophores are chromopeptides possessing at the N-terminal end of their peptide chain the chromophore derived from 2,3-diamino-6,7-dihydroxyquinoline common to pyoverdins. The linear peptide chain (L)-Hse--(D)-AcOHOrn-(D)-Ser-(L)-AcOHOrn-(D)-Hse-(L)-CTHPMD has at its C-terminal end a new natural amino acid which is the result of the condensation of I mol of homoserine and 1 mol of 2,4-diaminobutyric acid forming a cyclic amidine belonging to the tetrahydropyrimidine family: 2-homoseryl-4-carboxyl-3,4,5,6-tetrahydropyrimidine. The azoverdins differ only by a substitutent bound to the nitrogen on C-3 of the chromophore: azoverdin, the most abundant one, possesses a succinamide moiety, whereas azoverdin A bears a succinic acid moiety, lSN-labelled azoverdin afforded readily, after the complete assignment of the ISN spectrum of the siderophore, a sequence determination of the peptidic part of the molecule and gave evidence for the presence of two tetrahydropyrimidine groups on the molecule: one on the chromophore and the second at the C-terminal end of the siderophore.