The importance of the salivary glands in the maintenance of phosphorus homeostasis in the sheep

Abstract

Urinary and faecal phosphorus excretion were measured in five sheep for 4 days after acute intravenous infusion of 3.38 g of phosphorus as potassium dihydrogen phosphate. Urinary phosphorus excretion was increased for 12 hr after the infusion, but urinary phosphorus output was small compared with the marked increase in faecal phosphorus output. The increase in faecal phosphorus excretion coincided with and followed the appearance in the faeces of Cr-EDTA, which had been introduced into the rumen as a marker at the time of the phosphate infusion. This suggests that secretion of phosphorus into gut regions below the reticulo-rumen is not quantitatively altered in response to intravenous phosphorus loading, and that phosphorus absorption is also unaffected (at least not on a short-term basis). The additional phosphorus entered the alimentary canal at the level of the reticulo-rumen, and it was deduced that this occurred predominantly via the salivary glands. Persistence of the increase in faecal phosphorus excretion for some time after the Cr-EDTA marker had been cleared emphasizes the importance of the phosphorus recirculation system to ruminants like the sheep.