Phosphorylation of rat liver glycogen synthase by rabbit skeletal muscle phosphorylase kinase results in the incorporation of approximately 0.8-1.2 mol of PO4/subunit. Analyses of the tryptic peptides by isoelectric focusing and thin layer chromatography reveal the presence of two major 32P-labeled peptides. Similar results were obtained when the synthase was phosphorylated by rat liver phosphorylase kinase. This extent of phosphorylation does not result in a significant change in the synthase activity ratio. In contrast, rabbit muscle glycogen synthase is readily inactivated by rabbit muscle phosphorylase kinase; this inactivation is further augmented by the addition of rabbit muscle cAMP-dependent protein kinase or cAMP-independent synthase (casein) kinase-1. Addition of cAMP-dependent protein kinase after initial phosphorylation of liver synthase with phosphorylase kinase, however, does not result in an inactivation or additional phosphorylation. The lack of additive phosphorylation under this condition appears to result from the phosphorylation of a common site by these two kinases. Partial inactivation of liver synthase can be achieved by sequential phosphorylation with phosphorylase kinase followed by synthase (casein) kinase-1. Under this assay condition, the phosphate incorporation into the synthase is additively increased and the synthase activity ratio (-glucose-6-P/+glucose-6-P) is reduced from 0.95 to 0.6. Nevertheless, if the order of the addition of these two kinases is reversed, neither additive phosphorylation nor inactivation of the synthase is observed. Prior phosphorylation of the synthase by phosphorylase kinase transforms the synthase such that it becomes a better substrate for synthase (casein) kinase-1 as evidenced by a 2- to 4-fold increase in the rate of phosphorylation. This increased rate of phosphorylation of the synthase appears to result from the rapid phosphorylation of a site neighboring that previously phosphorylated by phosphorylase kinase.