The vascular effects of thrombin and thrombin receptor activating peptides (TRAP) were studied on isolated rings from porcine pulmonary arteries. In prostaglandin F2α (PGF2α)-precontracted vessels with intact endothelium, both thrombin- and TRAP-induced nitric oxide-mediated relaxation, whereas in endothelium-denuded vessels thrombin and TRAP elicited concentration-dependent contractile responses. The first phasic component of contraction was associated with increased generation of inositol 1,4,5-triphosphate and the tonic component seemed to be due to the activation of protein kinase C. Both peptides (TRAP-6 with 6 and TRAP-14 with 14 amino acid residues) did not differ in their intrinsic activity; like thrombin, both peptides elicited dualistic vascular effects but their potency was more than three orders of magnitude less than that of thrombin.