Activation of T cell hybridomas through their TCR leads to secretion of IL-2, inhibition of proliferation, and apoptosis. The identification of various inhibitors that prevent activation-induced T cell death (AICD) has helped identify several essential events in apoptosis. For example, inhibition of AICD by dexamethasone indicates a connection between these two programmed death pathways. In this study, we have investigated the interaction between the cAMP signal transduction pathway and the activation- or glucocorticoid-induced cell death. cAMP induced DNA fragmentation in thymocytes. T cell hybridomas displayed different sensitivity to cAMP. Regardless of its cAMP sensitivity, programmed cell death promoted by anti-CD3 or Ag in hybridoma was prevented by the presence of cAMP analogs. In contrast, cAMP had no effect on glucocorticoid-induced T cell death. The inhibitory effect of cAMP on AICD was unlikely to be due to quenching of T cell activation signals, because cAMP added 1 h after T cell activation could still prevent cell death. In addition, the increased binding of AP-1, NF-AT, and NF-kappa B during T cell activation was not significantly affected by cAMP. The presence of the inhibitory cAMP-mediated signals, together with the glucocorticoid-induced pathway, suggest there are at least two distinct mechanisms regulating AICD in immature lymphocytes.