Phosphoinositide 3-kinases (PI3-kinases) have been shown to be recruited to cell surface receptor signal complexes whose formation is triggered by growth factors, cytokines and other ligands. PI3-kinases are also involved in protein sorting phenomena. A number of PI3-kinase isotypes have been characterised in several laboratories. Here the relations between the PI3-kinases, PI4-kinases and PI5-kinases and other potential phosphoinositide kinases are analysed. A study of the relation of structure to function for sequence motifs defined through the use of homology searches and protein modelling techniques is described and used to assign the family of phosphoinositide kinases to subgroups.