Treatment of Japanese monkeys for 8 months with a high fat, high cholesterol diet produced atherosclerotic lesions in the aorta and mesenteric arteries, such as fatty dots, streaks and plaques, intimal thickening with accumulation of spindle-shaped cells and macrophages and endothelial cell flattening. Contractile responses of mesenteric arteries from control and atherosclerotic monkeys to electrical stimulation of adrenergic nerves, norepinephrine and angiotensin II did not differ, whereas contractions caused by serotonin in the atherosclerotic monkey arteries were significantly greater. Ketanserin and cinanserin suppressed the serotonin-induced contraction. Relaxations caused by adenosine and K+ (5 mM) were moderately attenuated in atherosclerotic monkey mesenteric arteries, and those by acetylcholine were reduced only slightly or not affected in the arteries or aortas. Relaxations of control and atherosclerotic arteries in response to nitroglycerin, isoproterenol and prostaglandin I2 did not differ. The relaxant response to K+ was reversed to a contraction by ouabain. Acetylcholine-induced relaxations were dependent on the endothelium and suppressed by atropine. Diet-induced atherosclerosis appears to potentiate contractions mediated via serotonergic 5-HT2 receptors and to attenuate relaxations possibly caused by activation of the electrogenic Na+ pump in the smooth muscle cell membrane. Endothelium-dependent relaxations via muscarinic receptors would not evidently be affected in mesenteric arteries and aortas from atherosclerotic Japanese monkeys.