The present studies were performed in vitro to define the participation of regulatory cyclic nucleotides in the relaxation of internal anal sphincter (IAS) smooth muscle in response to neural stimulation by electrical field stimulation (EFS) vs. exogenous vasoactive intestinal peptide (VIP). EFS and VIP both caused relaxation of the resting tone in the opossum-isolated IAS smooth muscle strips. The addition of permeant cyclic nucleotide derivatives, the guanylate cyclase stimulant sodium nitroprusside (SNP), and the adenylate cyclase stimulant forskolin caused a dose-dependent fall in the resting tension of IAS smooth muscle. The inhibitory effect of the agonists on the IAS smooth muscle was not modified by tetrodotoxin (TTX), a neurotoxin. TTX almost abolished the IAS responses to EFS. The effects of SNP and forskolin were selectively blocked by the putative inhibitors of corresponding enzyme systems, i.e., methylene blue (MB) (3 X 10(-5) M) for guanylate cyclase and N-ethylmaleimide (NEM) (10(-4) M) in the case of adenylate cyclase. NEM and not MB caused significant antagonism of the fall in IAS tension in response to both EFS and VIP during the control experiments. Such data suggest a common biochemical link (adenosine 3',5'-cyclic monophosphate as second messenger system) between the IAS smooth muscle relaxations with neural stimulation and VIP. In addition, a part of the IAS smooth muscle relaxation in response to EFS also involves the mediation of guanosine 5'-cyclic monophosphate.