Our previous work showed that, compared with parental U87MG human glioblastoma cells, vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) mRNA levels are decreased in U87/T691, a derivative line in which epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) signaling is inhibited by introduction of a truncated p185(Neu) protein (A. Maity et al., Cancer Res., 60: 5879-5886, 2000). The effect of EGFR activation on VEGF was mediated at the level of transcription via a phosphatidylinositol 3'-kinase (PI3K)-dependent pathway. In the current study we investigated the effect of PTEN, a negative regulator of PI3K signaling commonly mutated in glioblastoma cells, on VEGF expression. Several glioblastoma cell lines containing mutant PTEN, including U87MG, U87/T691, and U251MG, were infected with adenovirus expressing wild-type PTEN. This led to a decrease in the levels of both VEGF mRNA and phosphorylated Akt, a marker for PI3K activation. Treatment of U87MG cells with LY294002, a PI3K inhibitor, or cotransfection with a vector expressing wild-type PTEN decreased VEGF promoter activity using reporters containing either 1.5 kb of the promoter or a fragment extending from -88 to +54 bp. Activity of the -88/+54 VEGF promoter was down-regulated by dominant negative Akt and up-regulated by constitutively active myristoylated Akt. Introduction of wild-type PTEN and pharmacological inhibition of EGFR decreased VEGF mRNA expression and VEGF promoter activity in U87MG cells to a greater extent that did either manipulation by itself. Therefore, in human glioblastoma cells, PTEN mutation can cooperate with EGFR activation to increase VEGF mRNA levels by transcriptionally up-regulating the proximal VEGF promoter via the PI3K/Akt pathway.