Muscarinic cholinergic agonists can provoke a wide variety of physiological responses in target tissues. This can be achieved by mobilisation of calcium from intracellular and extracellular stores. The members of the family of Ca2+-mobilizing receptors to which the muscarinic receptor belongs share the ability to provoke a calcium-independent decrease in the concentration of inositol phospholipids. This response is closely coupled to agonist binding and is thus implicated in the mechanism whereby muscarinic and related receptors bring about elevated levels of Ca2+ in cells. Another widespread response to activation of muscarinic receptors is inhibition of adenylate cyclase possibly through direct interaction with a nucleotide regulatory protein. Circumstantial evidence and analogy with alpha 2-adrenergic receptors suggests that adenylate cyclase inhibition may be mediated by a different form of the muscarinic receptor to that involved in calcium mobilisation.