Phospholipase Cepsilon
(PLCepsilon) is a novel PLC that has a CDC25 guanine nucleotide exchange factor
(GEF) domain and two Ras association (RA) domains of which the second (RA2) is
critical for Ras activation of the enzyme. In the present studies, we examined
hormonal stimulation to elucidate receptor-mediated pathways that functionally
regulate PLCepsilon. We demonstrate that epidermal growth factor (EGF), a
receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) agonist, and lysophosphatidic acid (LPA),
sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P), and thrombin, G protein-coupled receptor
agonists, stimulate PLCepsilon overexpressed in COS-7 cells. EGF stimulated
PLCepsilon in an RA2-dependent manner through Ras and Rap. In contrast, LPA,
S1P and thrombin stimulated PLCepsilon by both RA2-independent and dependent
mechanisms. To determine the G proteins that mediate the effects of these GPCR
agonists, we coexpressed constitutively active G proteins with PLCepsilon and
found that Galpha12, Galpha13,