1. Calcium (ICa) and sodium (INa) currents were studied in single smooth muscle cells freshly isolated from both the newborn (1-3 days old) and adult rat ileum, using the patch-clamp technique (whole-cell configuration). 2. Under conditions when INa was blocked, two components of ICa, low-voltage activated or ICa,low and high-voltage activated or ICa,high, were observed in the newborn rat ileal cells. ICa,high and ICa,low have differing voltage ranges of activation and steady-state inactivation and time courses of recovery from inactivation. Potential dependence of ICa,low was much steeper and shifted toward negative membrane potential than that for ICa,high (slope factors and the potential of half-maximal inactivation were 13.6 and -60.6 and 8.8 and -49 mV for ICa,low and ICa,high, correspondingly). 3. Nifedipine at the high concentration of 30 microM exerted no effect on ICa,low and only slightly suppressed ICa,high, decreasing its peak to 0.81 +/- 0.04 (n = 7) at the holding potential of -80 mV and to 0.66 +/- 0.05 (n = 3) at -50 mV. ICa,high was suppressed significantly by Cd2+ ions, while ICa,low was more sensitive to Ni2+ ions. 4. Results presented here suggest that the properties of high-voltage-activated (HVA) Ca2+ channels in the rat small intestine are quite different to those described for L-type Ca2+ channels found in other smooth muscles. It is proposed that HVA Ca2+ channels are similar to N-type Ca2+ channels. 5. Comparison of Ca2+ currents in newborn and adult rat ileal cells showed that the contribution of ICa,low to the net Ca2+ current was negligible in adults, whereas the properties of HVA Ca2+ channels were similar in the neonatal and adult animals. 6. INa, studied in nominally Ca(2+)-free physiological salt solution, activated in the voltage range between -50 and -40 mV and reached its peak at -10 mV. INa was blocked in a dose-dependent manner by TTX with an apparent dissociation constant of 4.5 nM. 7. INa decay was monoexponential in the voltage range studied and its time constant decreased monotonically with membrane depolarization from 4.7 +/- 0.2 ms (n = 6) at -30 mV to 0.51 +/- 0.03 ms (n = 7) at 20 mV.(ABSTRACT TRUNCATED AT 400 WORDS)