Contractions and overflow of tritium and ATP elicited by single electrical pulses or short pulse trains were studied in the guinea-pig isolated vas deferens preincubated with [3H]-noradrenaline. ATP was measured using the luciferase technique. A single pulse caused only a small contraction and minimal tritium and ATP overflow. In contrast, trains of 6 pulses elicited marked contractions as well as tritium and ATP overflow. In experiments with 6 pulses/100 Hz, prazosin 0.3 microM reduced the contraction by 73%, did not change the evoked overflow of tritium, and reduced the evoked overflow of ATP by 85%. Suramin 300 microM reduced the contraction by 69% but changed neither the evoked overflow of tritium nor that of ATP. The combination of prazosin 0.3 microM and suramin 300 microM abolished the contraction, did not change the evoked overflow of tritium, and reduced the evoked overflow of ATP by 70%. When 6 pulses were applied at frequencies of 1, 2, 10 or 100 Hz, all responses increased with frequency up to a maximum at 10 Hz, but contractions and the evoked overflow of ATP increased with frequency to a greater extent than the evoked overflow of tritium. A similar frequency overflow relationship was observed when the medium contained prazosin 0.3 microM and suramin 300 microM (and evoked ATP overflow was greatly reduced). Yohimbine 1 microM did not affect the overflow of tritium evoked by 6 pulses/100 Hz but increased that evoked by 6 pulses/10 Hz. The results demonstrate an overflow of both noradrenaline and ATP in response to short pulse trains.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 250 WORDS)