The critical role of phosphoinositide 3-kinase ␥ (PI3K␥) in inflammatory cell activation and recruitment makes it an attractive target for immunomodulatory therapy. 5-Quinoxilin-6-methylene-1,3-thiazolidine-2,4-dione (AS605240), a potent PI3K␥ inhibitor, has been reported to ameliorate chronic inflammatory disorders including rheumatoid arthritis, systemic lupus erythematosus, and atherosclerosis. However, its in vivo effect on intestinal inflammation remains unknown. Here we evaluated the protective and therapeutic potentials of AS605240 in mice with dextran sodium sulfate (DSS)-induced acute and chronic colitis. Our results showed that AS605240 improved survival rate, disease activity index, and histological damage score in mice administered DSS in both preventive and therapeutic studies. AS605240 treatment also significantly inhibited the increase in myeloperoxidase levels, macrophage infiltration, and CD4ϩ T-cell number in the colon of DSS-fed mice. The DSS-induced overproduction of colonic proinflammatory cytokines including interleukin (IL)-1, tumor necrosis factor-␣, and interferon-␥ was significantly suppressed in mice undergoing AS605240 therapy, whereas colonic anti-inflammatory cytokines such as IL-4 were up-regulated. The downregulation of the phospho-Akt level in immunological cells from the inflamed colon tissue and spleen of AS605240-treated mice was detected both by immunohistochemical analysis and Western blotting. These findings demonstrate that AS605240 may represent a promising novel agent for the treatment of inflammatory bowel disease by suppressing leukocyte infiltration as well as by immunoregulating the imbalance between proinflammatory and anti-inflammatory cytokines.The intestinal bowel diseases (IBDs), including ulcerative colitis and Crohn's disease, are characterized by chronic relapsing inflammatory disorders of the gastrointestinal tract. Despite extensive efforts, the etiology and pathogenesis of IBDs remain unclear and effective therapies with limited side effects are still lacking (Bouma and Strober, 2003;Baert et al., 2004). Therefore, development of new effective and well tolerated drugs for IBD therapy is necessary.Chemokines, as detected in the inflamed colon of humans and in murine IBD models, are responsible for recruitment of leukocytes into the lamina propria (LP) of the intestine, which in most cases results in focal crypt damage and epithelial ulceration, the markers in the pathogenesis of IBD (MacDermott et al., 1998;Danese and Gasbarrini, 2005). Many studies have convincingly demonstrated that antagonists targeted against chemokine or receptor function can effectively inhibit acute and chronic inflammation via prevention of leukocyte chemotaxis and activation in animal models of IBD (Onuffer and Horuk, 2002). Recent studies have illustrated the fact that PI3K␥ acts as a key downstream signaling component that relays chemokine receptor signals (Curnock et al., 2002;Rü ckle et al., 2006).