Insulin provoked rapid increases in enzyme activity of immunoprecipitable protein kinase C-(PKC-) in rat adipocytes. Concomitantly, insulin provoked increases in 32 P labeling of PKC-both in intact adipocytes and during in vitro assay of immunoprecipitated PKC-; the latter probably reflected autophosphorylation, as it was inhibited by the PKC-pseudosubstrate. Insulin-induced activation of immunoprecipitable PKC-was inhibited by LY294002 and wortmannin; this suggested dependence upon phosphatidylinositol (PI) 3-kinase. Accordingly, activation of PI 3-kinase by a pYXXM-containing peptide in vitro resulted in a wortmannin-inhibitable increase in immunoprecipitable PKC-enzyme activity. Also, PI-3,4-(PO 4 ) 2 , PI-3,4,5-(PO 4 ) 3 , and PI-4,5-(PO 4 ) 2 directly stimulated enzyme activity and autophosphoralytion in control PKC-immunoprecipitates to levels observed in insulin-treated PKC-immunoprecipitates. In studies of glucose transport, inhibition of immunoprecipitated PKC-enzyme activity in vitro by both the PKC-pseudosubstrate and RO 31-8220 correlated well with inhibition of insulin-stimulated glucose transport in intact adipocytes. Also, in adipocytes transiently expressing hemagglutinin antigentagged GLUT4, co-transfection of wild-type or constitutive PKC-stimulated hemagglutinin antigen-GLUT4 translocation, whereas dominant-negative PKC-partially inhibited it. Our findings suggest that insulin activates PKC-through PI 3-kinase, and PKC-may act as a downstream effector of PI 3-kinase and contribute to the activation of GLUT4 translocation.The atypical protein kinase C (PKC), 1 PKC-, is ubiquitously expressed, but little is known about its activation or actions. This ignorance partly derives from the fact that PKC-is not activated by membrane-associated diacylglycerol (DAG) or phorbol esters, generally does not translocate appreciably from cytosol to membrane when activated, and is not depleted by prolonged phorbol ester treatment. Consequently, methods used to evaluate DAG-sensitive conventional (␣, , and ␥) and novel (␦, ⑀, , and ) PKCs are not relevant to PKC-and other DAG-insensitive, atypical PKCs. Although not activated by DAG, PKC-is activated in vitro by phosphatidylserine and polyphosphoinositides, including D3-PO 4 derivatives of phosphatidylinositol (PI) (1, 2). Because of its activation by polyphosphoinositides, PKC-has been suspected to operate downstream of PI 3-kinase; however, direct experimental evidence for this suspicion is lacking, particularly in intact cells. Since insulin increases total polyphosphoinositide levels (3-6), probably largely through PI 3-kinase activation (7), we examined the possibility that insulin activates PKC-by a PI 3-kinasedependent mechanism. To this end, we assayed immunoprecipitable PKC-(a) following treatment of intact adipocytes with insulin in the presence and absence of PI 3-kinase inhibitors; (b) following PI 3-kinase activation in vitro by a pYXXMcontaining peptide; and (c) in response to polyphosphoinositides added directly to the assay of PKC-in vitro. Also...