The signaling pathway mediating the contractile effect of  2 -adrenergic receptors ( 2 -AR) in the heart is still matter of debate. By using embryonic chick ventricular cardiomyocytes that express both functional  1 -and  2 -ARs, we show here that the specific  2 -AR agonist, zinterol, increases the amplitude of Ca 2؉ transients and cell contraction of electrically stimulated cells. Zinterol, up to 10 M, did not stimulate adenylyl cyclase activity, and its effect on Ca  1 -and  2 -Adrenergic receptors ( 1 -and  2 -ARs) 1 coexist in the hearts of various animal species, including humans. However, their relative amount and their respective participation in the positive chronotropic and inotropic effects of adrenaline and noradrenaline vary depending on the cardiac tissue, the animal species, and/or the pathophysiological state (1, 2). In the non-failing human left ventricle,  1 -ARs represent 80% of the total -ARs but mediate about 60% only of -adrenergicinduced ventricular contractility (3). In the human failing heart, the  1 / 2 -AR ratio decreases, and the contribution of  2 -AR to the contractile responses becomes predominant over that of  1 -AR, in particular at low adrenaline concentrations (3, 4). For these reasons, the potential role of  2 -AR for improving cardiac performance has received considerable attention. In fact, the myocardial-targeted overexpression of  2 -ARs in transgenic mice significantly enhanced myocardial left ventricular contractility (5).It is well documented that  1 -AR and  2 -AR subtypes are coupled to adenylyl cyclase activation and that stimulation of both receptors generally leads to an increase in cellular cAMP (4, 6, 7). In human healthy heart,  2 -ARs are more efficiently coupled to adenylyl cyclase than  1 -ARs (6 -10). However, during cardiac failure,  2 -AR subtypes are partially uncoupled from adenylyl cyclase (6, 7), whereas their contribution to the positive inotropic effects of adrenaline and noradrenaline is increased to 63% (7). In addition, studies in the rat heart (11, 12) and in the non-failing and failing canine heart (13) have demonstrated a dissociation between the inotropic effect of  2 -AR and cellular cAMP increase. Based on those observations, Xiao et al. (12) proposed that unidentified signal transduction pathway(s), other than adenylyl cyclase and cAMP, could be involved in the cardiac inotropic response to  2 -AR stimulation.Angiotensin II (14,15), bradykinin (16,17), and endothelin (15, 18), which exert positive inotropic responses, evoke AA release in heart. Furthermore, in a recent study, we have demonstrated that glucagon action relies not only on cAMP but also on the synergistic support of AA, by activation of the cPLA 2 which hydrolyzes the sn-2 fatty acyl ester bonds of membranous phospholipids (15).The aim of the present study was to investigate the respective role of cAMP and AA in the cardiac response to -adrenergic agonists. We used the model of embryonic chick ventricular cardiomyocytes that has been widely exploited ...