Incubation of human neutrophils with a chemotactic peptide [N-formylmethionyl-leucylphenylalanine (fMLP)] gave rise to an increase in the phosphoinositide 3-kinase (PI3K) activity, phosphorylation of p47^phoxand superoxide-anion (O₂^-) generation in the same fMLP-concentration-dependent manner. These responses to fMLP were markedly enhanced when the cells had been incubated for 10 min before the addition of fMLP with increasing concentrations of granulocyte–macrophage colony-stimulating factor (GM-CSF) that were only slightly effective themselves. Wortmannin, an inhibitor of PI3K, suppressed all of these fMLP actions in the same concentration-dependent manner in either GM-CSF-primed or non-primed cells. Sustained activation of protein kinase C by the addition of PMA caused marked phosphorylation of p47^phoxand respiratory burst itself without activation of PI3K. This strong action of PMA was not primed by GM-CSF. The chemotactic peptide was without effect in pertussis-toxin-treated cells, indicating that its actions are mediated by βγ-subunits liberated from toxin-susceptible heterotrimeric G_i proteins (Gβγ). Thus one of the mechanisms of GM-CSF-mediated priming of fMLP-induced respiratory burst is synergistic activation of wortmannin-sensitive PI3K by Gβγ in the presence of tyrosine-phosphorylated proteins in GM-CSF-treated cells, as recently indicated in a cell-free system [Kurosu, Maehama, Okada, Yamamoto, Hoshino, Fukui, Ui, Hazeki and Katada (1997) J. Biol. Chem. 272, 24252–24256]. GM-CSF primed fMLP-induced MAP (mitogen-activated protein) kinase activation enormously as well. The MAP kinase activation was primed even in the presence of wortmannin, indicating that PI3K was not the sole site where tyrosine kinase-related and Gβγ-mediated intracellular signals converge to elicit the priming. The GM-CSF priming of fMLP-induced PI3K activation and O₂^- generation was much smaller in magnitude in neutrophils in which cAMP accumulated upon incubation with prostaglandin E₁ than in the cells without the nucleotide accumulation. Thus the GM-CSF priming site, in addition to PI3K, might be just the target of cAMP-dependent protein kinase A in fMLP-initiated signalling cascades or could be localized immediately downstream thereof.