1. The contractile actions of vanadate (VO4) and pervanadate (PV, peroxide(s) of vanadate) were studied in rat gastric longitudinal muscle strips and in aortic rings. The roles of extracellular sodium and calcium were evaluated and the potential effects of nerve-released agonists were considered. The possibility that these responses were due to the potentiation of tyrosine kinase activity, as a result of PV-mediated tyrosine phosphatase inhibition was explored with the use of tyrosine kinase inhibitors (genistein, tyrphostin) and by Western blot analysis of phosphotyrosyl proteins in PV-treated tissues. The ability of PV to mimic the action of the tyrosine kinase receptor-associated agonist, epidermal growth factor-urogastrone (EGF-Uro), in the gastric preparation was also studied. 2. PV caused concentration-dependent contractions in both gastric and aorta-derived tissues, with a potency that was 1 to 2 orders of magnitude greater than that of VO4. 3. Although repeated exposure of gastric and aortic tissues to a fixed concentration of VO4 caused reproducible contractions in both tissues, repeated exposure of gastric tissue to PV caused an increased contractile response plateauing after 3 exposures. In contrast, a single exposure of aortic tissue to PV (20 microM) caused a prolonged desensitization of the tissue to the subsequent contractile actions of PV or other agonists. 4. The contractile responses to PV were unaffected in both preparations by tetrodotoxin, atropine, yohimbine and phenoxybenzamine; and in the aortic preparation, the responses to VO4 and PV were the same in the presence or absence of a functional endothelium. 5. PV-induced contractions in both tissues were observed in the absence of extracellular sodium but required extracellular calcium and were attenuated by 1 micro M nifedipine.6. In the gastric preparation, the characteristics of the contractile actions of PV paralleled those of EGF-Uro in terms of (1) inhibition by genistein, (2) inhibition by indomethacin and (3) a requirement for extracellular calcium. These response characteristics differed from those of other contractile agonists such as carbachol.7. In both the gastric and aortic preparations genistein was able to inhibit PV-induced contractions selectively without causing comparable inhibition of KCI-induced contractions. Tyrphostin (AG18) also selectively blocked PV-induced contractions in the gastric, but not in the aortic preparation.8. In both the gastric and aortic tissue, in step with an increased contractile response, PV caused increases in tissue phosphotyrosyl protein content, as detected by Western blot analysis using a monoclonal antiphosphotyrosine antibody; the increases in phosphotyrosyl protein content were reduced when tissues were treated with PV at the same time as a tyrosine kinase inhibitor.9 PV, at sub-contractile concentrations, potentiated the contractile action of angiotensin II in both the gastric and aorta tissue.10 We conclude that the growth factor-mimetic agent, PV, is a much more potent contractile agonist than V04 in both vascular and gastric smooth muscle tissue. PV can cause enhanced tissue phosphotyrosyl protein content most likely via the inhibition of tissue protein tyrosine phosphatases. The contractile actions of PV, which require extracelullar calcium and are independent of extracellular sodium, would appear not to be due either to Na+/Ca2" exchange, promoted by Na+/K+-ATPase inhibition or to the inhibition of Ca2+-ATPase and might be best explained by the ability of PV, via tyrosine phosphatase inhibition, to potentiate a tyrosine kinase pathway linked to calcium entry and to the contractile process.