Members of the canonical transient receptor potential (TRPC) subfamily of cation channels are candidates for capacitative and non-capacitative Ca 2؉ entry channels. When ectopically expressed in cell lines, TRPC3 can be activated by phospholipase C-mediated generation of diacylglycerol or by addition of synthetic diacylglycerols, independently of Ca 2؉ store depletion. Apart from this mode of regulation, little is known about other receptordependent signaling events that modulate TRPC3 activity. In the present study the role of tyrosine kinases in receptor-and diacylglycerol-dependent activation of TRPC3 was investigated. In HEK293 cells stably expressing TRPC3, pharmacological inhibition of tyrosine kinases, and specifically of Src kinases, abolished activation of TRPC3 by muscarinic receptor stimulation and by diacylglycerol. Channel regulation was lost following expression of a dominant-negative mutant of Src, or when TRPC3 was expressed in an Src-deficient cell line. In both instances, wild-type Src restored TRPC3 regulation. We conclude that Src plays an obligatory role in the mechanism for receptor and diacylglycerol activation of TRPC3.In many types of cells, membrane receptors coupled to phospholipase C (PLC) 1 promote inositol 1,4,5-trisphosphate (IP 3 )-mediated release of Ca 2ϩ from endoplasmic reticulum and Ca 2ϩ entry across the plasma membrane through both capacitative or store-operated and non-capacitative calcium entry pathways (1-3). Although the molecular identity of capacitative and noncapacitative calcium entry channels, as well as the signaling mechanisms involved, remain uncertain, mammalian homologues of the Drosophila melanogaster transient receptor potential (TRP) channel have been considered as potential candidates (4, 5), particularly members of the canonical TRP (TRPC) subfamily (designated TRPC1 through TRPC7 (6)). The human isoform of TRPC3, originally cloned by Zhu et al. (7), has been shown in many heterologous expression systems to behave as a receptoractivated channel that can be activated also by exogenous application of diacylglycerols (DAGs) independently of store depletion. In fact, DAG-induced activation of TRPC3 and its structural relatives TRPC6 and TRPC7 (8, 9) provides the likely mechanism of activation of these channels by phosphoinositide-specific PLClinked receptors, independently of IP 3 and store depletion. Apart from its regulation by DAG generated from PLC stimulation through either G-protein-coupled receptors (GPCRs) or receptor tyrosine kinases (RTKs), little is known about additional signaling pathways downstream of receptor-stimulation involved in activation of TRPC3. Stimulation of either of these receptor pathways results in rapid tyrosine phosphorylation of cellular proteins (10, 11), and so in the present study we investigated whether tyrosine kinases might play a role in the signaling mechanism underlying receptor-and DAG-dependent activation of TRPC3. We found that inhibition of tyrosine kinase activity completely abrogated the ability of either GPCR st...