The giant, unicellular alga Acetabularia is a well known experimental model for the study of actin-dependent intracellular organelle motility. In the cyst stage, however, which is equivalent to the gametophytic stage, organelles are immobile, even though an actin cytoskeleton is present. The reason for the lack of organelle motility at this stage has not been known. To test the hypothesis that organelle motility could be under the control of posttranslational modification by protein phosphorylation, we have treated cysts with submicromolar concentrations of okadaic acid or calyculin A, both potent inhibitors of serine/threonine protein phosphatases (ser/thr-PPases). The effects were dramatic: Instead of linear actin bundles typical for control cysts, circular arrays of actin bundles formed in the cortical cyst cytoplasm. Concomitant with the formation of these action rings, the cytoplasmic layers beneath the rings began to slowly rotate in a continuous and uniform counter-clockwise fashion. This effect suggests that protein phosphorylation acts on the actin cytoskeleton at two levels: (1) It changes the assembly properties of the actin filament system to the extent that novel cytoskeletal configurations are formed and (2) it raises the activity of putative motor proteins involved in the rotational movements to levels sufficiently high to support motility at a stage when organelle motility does not normally occur. Northern blot analysis of cyst stage-mRNA using probes specific to protein phosphatase type 1 (PP1) and type 2A (PP2A) reveals that PP2A is strongly expressed at this developmental stage whereas PP1 is not detectable, suggesting that PP2A is the likely target to the protein phosphatase inhibitors.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)