G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs)1 represent the largest family of cell surface receptors and have multiple effects on the activated cell. Despite the variety of molecular types of ligands (hormones, proteins, small peptides, ions, lipids, and sensory stimuli such as odorants, pheromones, and photons), GPCRs share homology in their core domain composed of seven transmembrane ␣-helices. The conservation of the same overall hydrophobic structure exemplifies the essential role of this structure for the activation process.GPCR activation promotes GDP to GTP exchange on the ␣ subunit of the heterotrimeric G protein associated with its cytoplasmic loops, thereby initializing the intracellular cascade of signaling events. Among the theoretical models describing the activation mechanism, the two-state allosteric model of activation has been proposed, following the discovery of inverse agonists and of constitutive activity for GPCRs (1-4). In this model, a GPCR preexists in equilibrium between an active and an inactive state in the absence of ligand. As such, agonists, higher affinity for the active state having displace the equilibrium toward activation, whereas inverse agonists have higher affinities for the inactive state. Constitutive activity is explained by an intrinsic tendency for a receptor to spontaneously isomerize toward the active conformation. Although the multiple conformational states theory is an attractive model for describing GPCR activation, there is a need for more data correlating the parameters of possible intermediate conversion states with physiological responses.Indeed, several GPCRs have been reported to mediate multiple signaling pathways through activation of different heterotrimeric G proteins: the receptors for dopamine D1 (G s and G o (5), G s and G q (6)) and D5 (G s and G z (7)), the receptors for the parathyroid hormone (G s , G q , and G i (8)), for the corticotropinreleasing hormone (G s , G i , G q , G o , and G z (9)), for the melaninconcentrating hormone (G i and G o and maybe G q (10)), for the vasoactive intestinal peptide (G s and G i (11)), for prostacyclin (G s , G i , and G q (12)), the adenosine A1 receptor (G o and G i (13)), the  2 -adrenergic receptor (G s and G i (14)), the muscarinic m3 receptor (G q and G 12 (15)), the 5-hydroxytryptamine receptor type 4; Bpa, G o , and G s (16)), the endothelin subtype B receptor (G i , G o , and G q (17, 18)). These different couplings suggest that GPCRs may exist in more than a single active state.We have previously addressed the question of multiple receptor states by using fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) to monitor ligand binding in parallel with cellular responses. A chimeric green fluorescent neurokinin NK2 receptor, EGFP-NK2R was expressed in HEK293 cells. Two of its neuropeptide agonists, the decapeptide neurokinin A (NKA) and its truncated form, NKA-(4 -10), were covalently linked to the fluorophore Texas Red (TR) (19). Kinetic measurements of the associations of TR1-NKA and TR7-NKA-(4 -10) to the EGFP-NK2 re...