Atriopeptin II and isoproterenol acted synergistically to inhibit the phenylephrine-induced contraction of aortic smooth muscle from Wistar-Kyoto (WKY) rats. Thus, a weakly inhibitory concentration of atriopeptin II (10 nM) caused a 5-fold decrease in the IC50 of isoproterenol from 169 nM to 32 nM, whereas a low concentration of isoproterenol (100 nM) increased the maximum inhibition attributable to atriopeptin II from 43% to 74%. Atriopeptin II (10 nM) increased the cGMP found in aortic smooth muscle and approximately doubled the accumulation of cAMP caused by isoproterenol. The results suggest that cGMP, formed by the action of atriopeptin II on receptor guanylyl cyclase (GC-A), may inhibit aortic cyclic nucleotide phosphodiesterase type III (PDE III) and that an increased accumulation of cAMP then mediates the observed synergism.