An essential role of the conserved Asp74 in the coupling of the type 1 angiotensin II (AII) receptor (AT1) to phospholipase C has already been reported (Bihoreau, C., Monnot, C., Davies, E., Teutsch, B., Bernstein, K. B., Corvol, P., and Clauser, E. (1993) Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U. S. A. 90, 5133-5137). Moreover, preliminary modeling studies have shown that a spatial proximity exists between Asp74, located in transmembrane domain II, and Tyr292, located in transmembrane domain VII and conserved in many, but not all, G protein-coupled receptors. We mutated Tyr292 into Phe and evaluated the pharmacological and activation characteristics of the mutated receptor (Y292F) stably expressed in Chinese hamster ovary cells. This receptor possessed unchanged binding properties for agonist or antagonist peptide ligands compared to the wild-type receptor, while its coupling to phospholipase C was severely impaired. Interestingly, competition binding experiments, using 125I-[Sar1]AII as a tracer ligand, showed that the Y292F receptor displayed an increased Ki value for DuP 753, an AT1-specific nonpeptide antagonist and a greatly decreased Ki value for the AT2-specific ligand CGP 42112A. These pharmacological changes are similar to those observed for the previously reported mutation of Asp74 into Asn. This apparently symmetrical role of Asp74 and Tyr292 is consistent with the hypothesis that an interaction between these two amino acids could be a key event in the molecular processes linking AII recognition and AT1 receptor activation.