We reported previously that recombinant myristoylated, alanine-rich protein kinase C substrate (MARCKS) expressed in Escherichia coli as well as MARCKS purified from rat brain specifically bound to phosphatidylserine (PS) in a calcium-independent manner and that the binding was regulated through phosphorylation of MARCKS (Nakaoka, T., Kojima, N., Hamamoto, T., Kurosawa, N., Lee, Y. C., Kawasaki, H., Suzuki, K., and Tsuji, S. (1993) J. Biochem. (Tokyo) 114, 449-452). In this study, to identify the minimum PS-binding region of MARCKS and the regulatory phosphorylation site, the binding of MARCKS to PS was examined in deletion mutants producing glutathione S-transferase (GST) fusion proteins. The mutant proteins GST-6-180 and GST-127-160 had almost the same ability to bind to immobilized PS as MARCKS purified from rat brain, whereas GST-127-152 did not bind to it. In addition, the binding of GST-6-156 to immobilized PS was 62% of that of GST-6-180, but that of GST-6-152 was only 8% and that of GST-6-135 was not detected. The effect of phosphorylation by protein kinase C was examined in several mutants of GST-6-180 whose serine residues were substituted with alanine. After phosphorylation, the mutants GST-6-180[S156A and S163A], GST-6-180]S156A], and GST-6-180[S163A] did not bind to immobilized PS like native MARCKS and GST-6-180. However, even after phosphorylation, GST-6-180-[S152A] and GST-6-180[S152A and S156A] could bind to immobilized PS. These results strongly suggest that MARCKS binds to PS molecules in the inner leaflet of the plasma membrane through residues 127-156, with residues 153-156 (FKKS) being particularly important in the binding of MARCKS to PS, and that the binding is regulated through the protein kinase C-catalyzed phosphorylation of the serine at residue 152.