Gastric smooth muscle of cats was used to investigate the involvement of protein kinase in vanadate-induced contraction. Vanadate caused a contraction of cat gastric smooth muscle in a dose-dependent manner. Vanadate-induced contraction was totally inhibited by 2 mM EGTA and 1.5 mM $LACI_3$ and significantly inhibited by $10mu$M verapamil and $1mu$M nifedipine, suggesting that vanadate-induced contraction is dependent on the extracellular $Ca^{2+}$ concentration, and the influx of extracellular $Ca^{2+}$ was mediated through voltage-dependent $Ca^{2+}$ channel. Both protein kinase C inhibitor and tyrosine kinase inhibitor significantly inhibited the vanadate-induced contraction and the combined inhibitory effect of two protein kinase inhibitors was greater than that of each one. But calmodulin antagonists did not have any influence on the vanadate-induced contraction. On the other hand, both forskolin ($1mu$M) and sodium nitroprusside ($1mu$M) significantly inhibited vanadate-induced contraction. Therefore, these results suggest that both protein kinase C and tyrosino kinase are involved in the vanadate-induced contraction which required the influx of extracellular $Ca^{2+}$ in cat gastric smooth muscle, and that the contractile mechanism of vanadate may be different from that of agonist binding to its specific receptor.