Essential role for the second extracellular loop in C5a receptor activation.

More than 90% of G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) contain a disulfide bridge that tethers the second extracellular loop (EC2) to the third transmembrane helix. To determine the importance of EC2 and its disulfide bridge in receptor activation, we subjected this region of the complement factor 5a receptor (C5aR) to random saturation mutagenesis and screened for functional receptors in yeast. The cysteine forming the disulfide bridge was the only conserved residue in the EC2-mutated receptors. Notably, approximately 80% of the functional receptors exhibited potent constitutive activity. These results demonstrate an unexpected role for EC2 as a negative regulator of C5a receptor activation. We propose that in other GPCRs, EC2 might serve a similar role by stabilizing the inactive state of the receptor.