The pivotal role of phosphatidylinositol 3-kinase (PI 3-kinase) in signal transduction has been well established in recent years. Receptor-regulated forms of PI 3-kinase are thought to phosphorylate phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate (PtdIns(4,5)P 2 ) at the 3-position of the inositol ring to give the putative lipid second messenger, phosphatidylinositol 3,4,5-trisphosphate (PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 ). Cellular levels of PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 are currently measured by time-consuming procedures involving radiolabeling with high levels of 32 PO 4 , extraction, and multiple chromatography steps. To avoid these lengthy and hazardous procedures, many laboratories prefer to assay PI 3-kinase activity in cell extracts and/or appropriate immunoprecipitates. Such approaches are not readily applied to measurements of PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 in extracts of animal tissues. Moreover, they can be misleading since the association of PI 3-kinases in molecular complexes is not necessarily correlated with the enzyme's activity state. Direct measurements of PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 would also be desirable since its concentration may be subject to additional control mechanisms such as activation or inhibition of the phosphatases responsible for PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 metabolism. We now report a simple, reproducible isotope dilution assay which detects PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 at subpicomole sensitivity, suitable for measurements of both basal and stimulated levels of PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 obtained from samples containing approximately 1 mg of cellular protein. Total lipid extracts, containing PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 , are first subjected to alkaline hydrolysis which results in the release of the polar head group Ins(1,3,4,5)P 4 . The latter is measured by its ability to displace [ 32 P]Ins(1,3,4,5)P 4 from a highly specific binding protein present in cerebellar membrane preparations. We show that this assay solely detects PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 and does not suffer from interference by other compounds generated after alkaline hydrolysis of total cellular lipids. Measurements on a wide range of cells, including rat-1 fibroblasts, 1321N1 astrocytoma cells, HEK 293 cells, and rat adipocytes, show wortmannin-sensitive increased levels of PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 upon stimulation with appropriate agonists. The enhanced utility of this procedure is further demonstrated by measurements of PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 levels in tissue derived from whole animals. Specifically, we show that stimulation with insulin increases PtdIns(3,4,5)P 3 levels in rat skeletal muscle in vivo with a time course which parallels the activation of protein kinase B in the same samples.PI 3-kinases 1 represent a family of enzymes which phosphorylate phosphoinositides on the 3-position of the inositol ring (1). The role of PI 3-kinases in mitogenic signaling, membrane ruffling, trafficking, cell motility, inflammatory and immune cell responses, activation of neutrophils, and the metabolic effects of insulin (2-8) has been well established using biochemical, pharmacological, and genetic approaches. At least two major classes of PI 3-kinas...