The earliest known step in the activation of the high affinity IgE receptor, Fc⑀RI, is the tyrosine phosphorylation of its  and ␥ subunits by the Src family tyrosine kinase, Lyn. We report here that aggregation-dependent association of Fc⑀RI with specialized regions of the plasma membrane precedes its tyrosine phosphorylation and appears necessary for this event. Tyrosine phosphorylation of  and ␥ occurs in intact cells only for Fc⑀RI that associate with these detergent-resistant membrane domains, which are enriched in active Lyn. Furthermore, efficient in vitro tyrosine phosphorylation of Fc⑀RI subunits occurs only for those associated with isolated domains. This association and in vitro phosphorylation are highly sensitive to low concentrations of detergent, suggesting that lipid-mediated interactions with Lyn are important in Fc⑀RI activation. Participation of membrane domains accounts for previously unexplained aspects of Fc⑀RI-mediated signaling and may be relevant to signaling by other multichain immune receptors.The plasma membrane contains specialized regions that have distinct compositions and can serve unique functions in the regulation of cell surface receptor activation. For example, caveolae have been shown to associate with certain signaling proteins (1, 2) and have been implicated in receptor activation (3-6), vesicular transport (7,8), and the uptake of small molecules (9). Compositionally related membrane domains, which lack the invaginated morphology of caveolae as well as the membrane protein caveolin, have also been identified and biochemically separated from caveolae (10). These membrane domains, like caveolae, are resistant to solubilization in nonionic detergents such as Triton X-100, are enriched in sphingolipids and glycosylphosphatidylinositol-linked proteins, and are associated with palmitoyl-anchored signaling molecules including Src family tyrosine kinases (10 -14). Detergent-resistant membrane domains isolated from rat basophilic leukemia (RBL) 1 cells, a mast cell line, contain at least 30% of the cellular Lyn, a Src family tyrosine kinase, and no detectable caveolin (15).Aggregation of Fc⑀RI on mast cells and basophils by multivalent antigens leads to phosphorylation of immunoreceptor tyrosine-based activation motifs within the  and ␥ receptor subunits by . This initiates a signaling cascade culminating in secretion of inflammatory mediators and cytokines that play an important role in the allergic response (20, 21). The molecular mechanism by which aggregation of Fc⑀RI initiates its phosphorylation by Lyn is incompletely understood. Selective binding of Lyn directly to unphosphorylated Fc⑀RI  (22) has been proposed to mediate an initial transphosphorylation of aggregated Fc⑀RI (23), but this does not account for the capacity of Fc⑀RI lacking the  subunit (24, 25) or chimeric receptors containing only the ␥ cytoplasmic tail (26 -28) to become tyrosine-phosphorylated upon aggregation. The involvement of detergent-resistant membrane domains in Fc⑀RI signaling was recently sugge...