The endothelial isoform of nitric oxide synthase (eNOS) is dually acylated and thereby targeted to signaltransducing microdomains termed caveolae. In endothelial cells, eNOS interacts with caveolin-1, which represses eNOS enzyme activity. In cardiac myocytes, eNOS associates with the muscle-specific caveolin-3 isoform, but whether this interaction affects NO production and regulates myocyte function is unknown. We isolated neonatal cardiac myocytes from mutant mice with targeted disruption of the eNOS gene and transfected them with wild-type (WT) eNOS or myristoylation-deficient (myr ؊ ) eNOS mutant cDNA. In myocytes expressing WT eNOS, the muscarinic cholinergic agonist carbachol completely abrogated the spontaneous beating rate and induced a 4-fold elevation of the cGMP level. By contrast, in the myr ؊ eNOS myocytes, carbachol failed to exert its negative chronotropic effect and to increase cGMP levels. We then used a reversible permeabilization protocol to load intact neonatal rat myocytes with an oligopeptide corresponding to the caveolin-3 scaffolding domain. This peptide completely and specifically inhibited the carbachol-induced negative chronotropic effect and the accompanying cGMP elevation. Thus, our results suggest that acylated eNOS may couple muscarinic receptor activation to heart rate control and indicate a key role for eNOS/caveolin interactions in the cholinergic modulation of cardiac myocyte function.The endothelial isoform of nitric-oxide synthase (eNOS) 1 , originally identified in large vessel endothelium, is now known to be expressed in numerous cell types, including cardiac myocytes. The eNOS enzyme is dually acylated (for review, see Refs. 1 and 2) and is thereby specifically targeted to plasmalemmal signal-transducing microdomains termed caveolae (3, 4). In endothelial cells and cardiac myocytes, eNOS is quantitatively associated with caveolin (4), the structural protein of caveolae, and a stable protein-protein interaction takes place at consensus sequences present within both proteins and leads to the inhibition of the eNOS activity (5-8). More recently, we have also documented that, in endothelial cells, when intracellular Ca 2ϩ concentration is increased by an agonist, a regulatory cycle is initiated (2, 9), wherein (i) Ca 2ϩ /calmodulin activates eNOS by disrupting the heteromeric complex formed between eNOS and caveolin; (ii) activated, caveolin-free eNOS is translocated from caveolae, probably associated with enzyme desensitization; (iii) when Ca 2ϩ returns to basal levels, eNOS reassociates with caveolin; and (iv) the inhibitory complex is restored to caveolae, a process facilitated by eNOS palmitoylation. The role (if any) of this eNOS-caveolin regulatory cycle in cardiac myocytes, however, remains to be established.The location of eNOS in plasmalemmal caveolae and its interaction with caveolin may find several biological justifications. First, the compartmentation of eNOS with other signaling proteins may facilitate, or improve the efficacy of, the coupling between agonist stim...