The mechanism of muscarinic inhibition of the Ca-current (ICa) was studied in ventricular myocytes of guinea pig hearts and the following results were obtained. Acetylcholine (ACh) in concentrations up to 10(-4) M had little effect, if any, on ICa in control cells. ACh reduced the isoprenaline (ISP)-induced increase of ICa. The dose-response-relation (ISP concentration vs. ICa density) was shifted by ACh towards higher ISP concentrations. But both, at low and high ISP concentrations ACh had nor or little effect. ACh was ineffective when ICa was increased by dialysing the cell with catalytic subunit of cAMP-dependent protein kinase or cAMP. ACh reduced ICa enhanced by isobutylmethylxanthine or by forskolin. ACh did not depress ICa when the cell was dialysed with the non-hydrolysable GTP-derivative, GMP-PNP. In this condition the beta-adrenergic enhancement of ICa was also absent. Pertussis toxin, which is known to inhibit the inhibitory transducer protein (Ni), abolished the ACh response. We concluded from these results that ACh depresses ICa by inhibiting, via Ni, the cAMP production.