We compared myosin samples isolated from iliac-femoral arteries of control and renal (stenosis) hypertensive dogs to determine the effects of increased blood pressure on the characteristics of the myosin. The ratio of 204-kd (SM-1) to 200-kd (SM-2) myosin heavy chains was approximately 1:0.75 for myosin from the iliac-femoral artery of normotensive dogs. This was not altered significantly in response to hypertension. Both SM-1 and SM-2 myosin heavy chains cross-reacted with antibody against smooth muscle myosin on Western blot analysis. In addition to these heavy chains, purified myosin from both groups showed a very faint protein band slightly below the 200-kd myosin heavy chain on electrophoresis on a highly porous sodium dodecyl sulfate-polyacrylamide gel. This protein band cross-reacted with antibody against nonmuscle myosin but not with smooth muscle myosin antibody. The 20- and 17-kd light chains of myosin isolated from normotensive and hypertensive dogs gave similar results on isoelectric focusing. Peptide maps of tryptic digests of heavy chains revealed both quantitative and qualitative differences. The Ca+2-activated myosin ATPase activity measured in high salt (0.5 mol/L KC1) was similar for myosin from both groups, whereas the potassium (ethylenedinitrilo)tetraacetic acid-stimulated ATPase of myosin from hypertensive animals was higher than that from normotensive animals. The actin-activated ATPase activities of the myosin from hypertensive animals was also higher than that of the myosin isolated from normotensive artery (0.11±0.007 and 0.213±0.008 μmol PIper milligram per minute, respectively, for normotensive and hypertensive). These studies indicate that the structural and functional properties of myosin in a muscular artery are altered in hypertensive dogs.