Parathyroid hormone (PTH) and parathyroid hormone-related peptide (PTHrP) bind and activate the PTH/PTHrP receptor (PTH-1R). However, while the related receptor PTH-2R responds potently to PTH, it is not activated by PTHrP. Two hormone sites are known to be responsible for these different potencies. First, the absence of efficacy for PTHrP at PTH-2R is due to the presence of His-5 in PTHrP (Ile-5 in PTH), which interacts with the receptor's juxtamembrane domain. Second, PTHrP has lower affinity than PTH for PTH-2R because of the presence of Phe-23 (Trp-23 in PTH), which interacts with the receptor's N-terminal extracellular domain. We used these different receptor subtype properties to demonstrate that residue 41 in PTH-1R, when either the native Leu or substituted by Ile or Met, can accommodate either Phe or Trp at position 23 of the ligand. However, when Leu-41 is substituted by a smaller side chain, either Ala or Val (its equivalent residue in PTH-2R), the receptor becomes highly selective for those peptide ligands with Trp-23. Hence, despite the conservative nature of the substitutions found in the native ligands (Phe for Trp) and receptors (Leu for Val), they nevertheless enable a significant degree of selectivity to be achieved. Analysis of this functionally important ligand-receptor contact, within the context of the recent X-ray structure of the peptide-bound PTH-1R N domain, reveals the nature of the selectivity filter and how it is by-passed in PTH-1R.Parathyroid hormone (PTH) and parathyroid hormonerelated peptide (PTHrP) mediate many of their physiological effects via the same receptor, PTH-1R (Lanske et al., 1996). Although PTH has 84 residues and PTHrP has 141 residues, the biological effects they mediate via PTH-1R can be replicated by synthetic peptides equivalent to the first 34 amino acids of each peptide (e.g., Segre et al., 1979). These shorter analogs bind and activate PTH-1R in an manner analogous to that of the "two-site model" seen at other related family B G protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) (Bergwitz et al., 1996;López de Maturana et al., 2003;Castro et al., 2005). In this model, the ligand's C-terminal region interacts with the receptor's N-terminal extracellular domain (N domain) to generate affinity. This first interaction positions the N-terminal region of the peptide such that it activates the receptor via a second interaction with the receptor's juxtamembrane "core" domain, comprising the transmembrane helices and connecting loops. The nature of the first interaction has been investigated via a number of mutagenic and cross-linking studies (Mannstadt et al., 1998;Gensure et al., 2001;Pham and Sexton, 2004) and more recently has been the focus of several structural studies that defined the structures of the peptidebound N domains of the receptors for corticotropin-releasing factor, pituitary adenylyl cyclase-activating polypeptide, glucose-dependent insulinotropic peptide (GIP), glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) and, very recently, PTH itself (Grace et al.,