Over 30 inositol polyphosphates are known to exist in mammalian cells; however, the majority of them have uncharacterized functions. In this study we investigated the molecular basis of synthesis of highly phosphorylated inositol polyphosphates (such as inositol tetrakisphosphate, inositol pentakisphosphate (IP 5 ), and inositol hexakisphosphate (IP 6 )) in rat cells. We report that heterologous expression of rat inositol polyphosphate kinases rIPK2, a dual specificity inositol trisphosphate/inositol tetrakisphosphate kinase, and rIPK1, an IP 5 2-kinase, were sufficient to recapitulate IP 6 synthesis from inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate in mutant yeast cells. Overexpression of rIPK2 in Rat-1 cells increased inositol 1,3,4,5,6-pentakisphosphate (I(1,3,4,5,6)P 5 ) levels about 2-3-fold compared with control. Likewise in Rat-1 cells, overexpression of rIPK1 was capable of completely converting I(1,3,4,5,6)P 5 to IP 6 . Simultaneous overexpression of both rIPK2 and rIPK1 in Rat-1 cells increased both IP 5 and IP 6 levels. To reduce IPK2 activity in Rat-1 cells, we introduced vector-based short interference RNA against rIPK2. Cells harboring the short interference RNA had a 90% reduction of mRNA levels and a 75% decrease of I(1,3,4,5,6)P 5 . These data confirm the involvement of IPK2 and IPK1 in the conversion of inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate to IP 6 in rat cells. Furthermore these data suggest that rIPK2 and rIPK1 act as key determining steps in production of IP 5 and IP 6 , respectively. The ability to modulate the intracellular inositol polyphosphate levels by altering IPK2 and IPK1 expression in rat cells will provide powerful tools to study the roles of I(1,3,4,5,6)P 5 and IP 6 in cell signaling.Most of the over 30 inositol polyphosphates present in mammalian cells have unknown physiological functions (1-3). One of the well characterized inositol polyphosphates is a second messenger, inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (I(1,4,5)P 3 ), 1 which participates in intracellular Ca 2ϩ mobilization (4) and also serves as a precursor of highly phosphorylated inositol polyphosphates such as inositol tetrakisphosphate (IP 4 ), inositol pentakisphosphate (IP 5 ), and inositol hexakisphosphate (IP 6 ) (1-3). Recently the inositol polyphosphate synthetic pathway in budding yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae, has been identified (5-8). In yeast, I(1,4,5)P 3 , which is hydrolyzed from phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate by phospholipase C, is sequentially phosphorylated to IP 6 by two inositol polyphosphate kinases, a multiple specificity IP 3 /IP 4 kinase (inositol polyphosphate kinase 2 (Ipk2)) and an IP 5 2-kinase (inositol polyphosphate kinase 1 (Ipk1)). On the other hand, a synthetic pathway of IP 6 from I(1,4,5)P 3 in mammalian cells is thought to be more complex and to be a sequence of I(1,4,5)P 3 3 I(1,3,4,5)P 4 3 I(1,3,4)P 3 3 I(1,3,4,6)P 4 3 I(1,3,4,5,6)P 5 3 IP 6 (2, 3). In this pathway, IP 3 3-kinases (2), inositol polyphosphate 5-phosphatases (9), and I(1,3,4)P 3 5/6-kinase (3) appear to catalyze the first three steps to produ...