To localize the regions of lipoprotein lipase (LPL) that are responsive to activation by apoC-II, an apoC-II peptide fragment was cross-linked to bovine LPL. Following chemical hydrolysis and peptide separation, a specific fragment of LPL (residues 65-86) was identified to interact with apoC-II. The fragment contains regions of amino acid sequence dissimilarity compared with hepatic lipase (HL), a member of the same gene family that is not responsive to apoC-II. Using site-directed mutagenesis, two sets of chimeras were created in which the two regions of human LPL (residues 65-68 and 73-79) were exchanged with the corresponding human HL sequences. The chimeras consisted of an HL backbone with the suspected LPL regions replacing the corresponding HL sequences either individually (HLLPL-(65-68) and HLLPL-(73-79)) or together (HLLPLD). Similarly, LPL chimeras were created in which the candidate regions were replaced with the corresponding HL sequences (LPLHL-(77-80), LPLHL-(85-91), and LPLHLD). Using a synthetic triolein substrate, the lipase activity of the purified enzymes was measured in the presence and absence of apoC-II. Addition of apoC-II to HLLPL-(65-68) and HLLPL-(73-79) did not significantly alter their enzyme activity. However, the activity of HLLPLD increased approximately 5-fold in the presence of apoC-II compared with an increase in native LPL activity of approximately 11-fold. Addition of apoC-II to LPLHL-(77-80) resulted in approximately 10-fold activation, whereas only approximately 6- and approximately 4-fold activation of enzyme activity was observed in LPLHL-(85-91) and LPLHLD, respectively. In summary, our results have identified 11 amino acid residues in the N-terminal domain of LPL (residues 65-68 and 73-79) that appear to act cooperatively to enable substantial activation of human LPL by apoC-II.