Cultures of Methanobacterium thermoautotrophicum were supplemented with 13C-labeled acetate or pyruvate, and the labeling pattern of the corrinoid, factor III, was established by 13C NMR spectroscopy. Complete 13C signal assignments were obtained by two-dimensional NMR experiments. The labeling pattern of factor III was analyzed by comparison with those of amino acids and nucleosides. The corrin ring system is derived from eight molecules of glutamate. The aminopropanol moiety is derived in a hitherto unknown pathway from pyruvate by reductive amination. The heterocyclic ring of hydroxybenzimidazole shares the labeling pattern of the imidazole ring of purines. The remaining four carbon atoms of the carbocyclic ring show the labeling signature of a carbohydrate with two of the carbons introduced from acetate and two from C-1 of pyruvate. However, erythrose can be ruled out as the specific precursor on the basis of a detailed investigation of aromatic amino acids indicating that erythrose 4-phosphate is obtained by reductive carboxylation of a triose precursor and not by the pentose phosphate cycle.