The mol. determinants of lysophosphatidic acid (LPA) in the activation of the G protein-coupled LPA receptor, EDG2, in yeast, were established as a preliminary study to the anal. of the EDG2 receptor in mammalian cells.Using induction of the FUS1:lacZ reporter system by LPAs of different structures, a structure-activity profile was developed for LPA in the activation of EDG2 and was compared with the activation of EDG4 and MAP kinases (ERK1 and ERK2).EDG2 activation was most dependent on two parameters.First, only LPA mols. with side chains of 16 or 18 carbons, but not 14 or 24 carbons, would activate lacZ.Second, only acyl-linked (ester) LPA analogs would activate, unlike the alkenyl-linked (ether) forms that were completely inactive.Substitutions at the sn-2 position were less criticalIn contrast to EDG2, EDG4 had a different structure-activity profile than EDG2 in yeast.EDG4-mediated activation of lacZ by LPA was strongly dependent on the sn-2 substitution.The acyl-linked analogs that activated EDG2 had no activity toward EDG4.Interestingly, the structure-activity profile for ERK1 and ERK2 matched very closely the profile for EDG4 but not EDG2.From these data, it is possible to suggest that EDG2 does not mediate MAP kinase activation in mammalian cells and, therefore, does not elicit the mitogenic response associated with LPA in serum.The similarities between the requirements for MAP kinase activation in fibroblasts and EDG4 activation in yeast suggests that EDG4 may be a mitogenic LPA receptor.