AMP deaminase (AMPD) converts AMP to IMP and is a diverse and highly regulated enzyme that is a key component of the adenylate catabolic pathway. In this report, we identify the high affinity interaction between AMPD and phosphoinositides as a mechanism for regulation of this enzyme. We demonstrate that endogenous rat brain AMPD and the human AMPD3 recombinant enzymes specifically bind inositide-based affinity probes and to mixed lipid micelles that contain phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate. Moreover, we show that phosphoinositides specifically inhibit AMPD catalytic activity. Phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate is the most potent inhibitor, effecting pure noncompetitive inhibition of the wild type human AMPD3 recombinant enzyme with a K i of 110 nM. AMPD activity can be released from membrane fractions by in vitro treatment with neomycin, a phosphoinositide-binding drug. In addition, in vivo modulation of phosphoinositide levels leads to a change in the soluble and membrane-associated pools of AMPD activity. The predicted human AMPD3 sequence contains pleckstrin homology domains and (R/ K)X n (R/K)XKK sequences, both of which are characterized phosphoinositide-binding motifs. The interaction between AMPD and phosphoinositides may mediate membrane localization of the enzyme and function to modulate catalytic activity in vivo.Phosphoinositides and inositol polyphosphates (referred to collectively as inositides) are components of many pathways in eukaryotic cells, functioning in second messenger cascades, acting as regulators of many proteins, and operating as membrane localization signals (1-3). Numerous protein and lipid kinases, adaptor proteins, ion channels, phospholipases, modulators of small GTPases, and actin-binding proteins are regulated by inositides (1-3). To identify novel targets for inositides, our laboratories and others have used purification schemes employing affinity resins that contain tethered inositol polyphosphate head groups (3-9). These affinity purifications were successful in the identification of inositide binding in the clathrin adaptor/assembly protein AP-2 (6), centaurin ␣ (7), a centaurin ␣ orthologue (8), and a phospholipase C (PLC) 1 -related protein (9). In addition to AP-2 and centaurin ␣, we isolated several other proteins from rat brain, one of which was approximately 80 kDa (5). Published reports show that inositol polyphosphates modulate the activity of the enzyme AMP deaminase (EC 3.5.4.6) (AMPD) (10, 11), an enzyme family whose endogenous, purified subunit molecular masses are between 66 and 88 kDa. Therefore, we hypothesized that AMPD could be the 80-kDa protein isolated using the inositide affinity resin.AMPD is a diverse and highly regulated enzyme located at a branchpoint in the adenine nucleotide catabolic pathway and is important in regulating nucleotide pools. AMPD is also a component of the purine nucleotide cycle, an energy-generating pathway reportedly operative in many animal tissues (reviewed in Ref. 12). The AMPD1 gene encodes human isoform M and rat iso...