We previously described the purification of a membrane-bound diacylglycerol kinase highly selective for sn-1-acyl-2-arachidonoyl diacylglycerols (Walsh, J. P., Suen, R., Lemaitre, R. N., and Glomset, J. A. (1994) J. Biol. Chem. 269, 21155-21164). This enzyme appears to be responsible for the rapid clearance of the arachidonaterich pool of diacylglycerols generated during stimulusinduced phosphoinositide turnover. We have now shown phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate to be a potent and specific inhibitor of arachidonoyl-diacylglycerol kinase. Kinetic analyses indicated a K i for phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate of 0.04 mol %. Phosphatidic acid also was an inhibitor with a K i of 0.7 mol %. Other phospholipids had only small effects at these concentrations. A series of multiply phosphorylated lipid analogs also inhibited the enzyme, indicating that the head group phosphomonoesters are the primary determinants of the polyphosphoinositide effect. However, these compounds were not as potent as phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate, indicating some specificity for the polyphosphoinositide additional to its total charge. Five other diacylglycerol kinases were activated to varying degrees by phosphatidylinositol 4,5-bisphosphate and phosphatidic acid, suggesting that inhibition by acidic lipids may be specific for the arachidonoyl-DAG kinase isoform. Given the presumed role of arachidonoyl-diacylglycerol kinase in the phosphoinositide cycle, this inhibition may represent a mechanism for polyphosphoinositides to regulate their own synthesis.Diacylglycerol kinases catalyze the ATP-dependent phosphorylation of sn-1,2-diacylglycerol (DAG) 1 to phosphatidic acid (PA) (1-3). As such, they are widely regarded as attenuators of the DAG signaling and protein kinase C activation that occur during stimulus-induced PI turnover (4). The recent identification of a specific DAG kinase essential for PI-mediated invertebrate visual transduction is a striking confirmation of the involvement of DAG kinases in the PI cycle (5). It has recently become evident that DAG kinases are a diverse family of isoenzymes (2). The first of these to be purified and cloned was an 82.6-kDa isoform expressed predominantly in brain and thymus (6, 7). Several homologs of this enzyme also have been cloned, each of which has its own highly specific pattern of expression in cells and tissues (8 -12). Additional DAG kinases, which appear distinct from the cloned isoforms described above, also have been reported (13-21). However, detailed enzymologic data on these are not available at this time. Our laboratory has described and purified a membranebound DAG kinase highly selective for DAG molecular species containing arachidonate as the sn-2 fatty acyl moiety (21-24). This activity can be distinguished from other DAG kinases by a variety of enzymologic properties in addition to its substrate specificity (21-24). Arachidonoyl-DAG kinase activity varies widely between different tissues, but it is detectable in all cells and tissues we have examined (21-24). G...