Specific sites in the linker region of human P-glycoprotein phosphorylated by protein kinase C (PKC) were identified by means of a synthetic peptide substrate, PG-2, corresponding to residues 656-689 from this region of the molecule. As PG-2 has several sequences of the type recognized by the cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase (PKA), PG-2 was also tested as a substrate for PKA. PG-2 was phosphorylated by purified PKC in a Ca2+/phospholipid-dependent manner, with a Km of 1.3 microM, and to a maximum stoichiometry of 2.9 +/- 0.1 mol of phosphate/mol of peptide. Sequence analysis of tryptic fragments of PG-2 phosphorylated by PKC identified Ser-661, Ser-667 and Ser-671 as the three sites of phosphorylation. PG-2 was also found to be phosphorylated by purified PKA in a cyclic AMP-dependent manner, with a Km of 21 microM, and to a maximum stoichiometry of 2.6 +/- 0.2 mol of phosphate/mol of peptide. Ser-667, Ser-671 and Ser-683 were phosphorylated by PKA. Truncated peptides of PG-2 were utilized to confirm that Ser-661 was PKC-specific and Ser-683 was PKA-specific. Further studies showed that PG-2 acted as a competitive substrate for the P-glycoprotein kinase present in membranes from multidrug-resistant human KB cells. The membrane kinase phosphorylated PG-2 mainly on Ser-661, Ser-667 and Ser-671. These results show that human P-glycoprotein can be phosphorylated by at least two protein kinases, stimulated by different second-messenger systems, which exhibit both overlapping and unique specificities for phosphorylation of multiple sites in the linker region of the molecule.