This laboratory demonstrated earlier that oleic acid inhibited platelet activating factor (PAF)-induced aggregation and serotonin release of rabbit platelets ( M. Miwa, C. Hill, R. Kumar, J. Sugatani, M. S. Olson, and D. J. Hanahan, 1987, J. Biol. Chem. 262, 527–530). More recently, we reported that oleic acid caused a decrease in phosphatidylinositol-4-phosphate (PIP) and phosphatidylinositol-4,5-bisphosphate (PIP 2), but did not affect the level of inositol-1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP 3), in rabbit platelets ( D. Nunez, J. Randon, C. Gandhi, A. Siafaka-Kapadai, M. S. Olson, and D. J. Hanahan, 1990, J. Biol. Chem. 265, 18330–18838). These results suggested that oleic acid did not stimulate phospholipase C. In contrast, PAF induced a decrease in PIP 2 and an increase in PIP level and IP 3. These effects were shown to be attenuated by oleic acid. In this current study, our experiments show that (a) oleic acid blocked PAF-induced rise in intracellular [Ca 2+] (to provide a mechanism in agreement with our previous experiments which showed that oleic acid inhibited PAF-induced IP 3 rise in platelets) and (b) oleic acid itself induced a gradual rise in [Ca 2+] i, which would provide a mechanism for oleic acid-induced aggregation despite the fact that oleic acid did not cause the production of IP 3 ( Nunez et al., 1990 ). Oleic acid, in a dose-dependent manner, was shown to inhibit PAF-induced Ca 2+ mobilization from intra- and extracellular sources. The inhibition was closely related to the suppressive effect of oleic acid on PAF-induced aggregation. Furthermore, oleic acid inhibited the PAF-stimulated phosphorylation of the 20- and 40-kDa proteins. At concentrations above 20 μ m, oleic acid itself could induce platelet aggregation and Ca 24 mobilization, but the time sequence of these two responses in human platelets was significantly different from those obtained with PAF. Oleic acid alone, at 20 μ m, caused a 1.4-fold increase in the cAMP level in platelets which was followed by a decline to a basal value at higher concentrations of this fatty acid. It seemed clear that elevation of adenylate cyclase activity was not associated with free fatty acid inhibition of platelet activation. Interestingly, both PAF and oleic acid added separately to human platelets induced proteintyrosine phosphorylation, but oleic acid did not cause any inhibition of PAF-induced protein-tyrosine phosphorylation. Thus, these findings show that oleic acid inhibition of PAF-induced aggregation was closely correlated to inhibition of PAF-induced [Ca 2+] i changes and that oleic acid-induced aggregation, which occurred over a different time frame than PAF-aggregation, could be explained by a rise in [Ca 2+] i.