Discovery

The discovery of PI3Ks by Lewis Cantley and colleagues began with their identification of a previously unknown phosphoinositide kinase associated with the polyoma middle T protein. They observed unique substrate specificity and chromatographic properties of the products of the lipid kinase, leading to the discovery that this phosphoinositide kinase had the unprecedented ability to phosphorylate phosphoinositides on the 3' position of the inositol ring.