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Metabolism of Butyrate-3-¹⁴C in the Ruminant Under Various Metabolic States¹

Departments of Dairy Science and Biochemistry, University of Wisconsin, Madison

ABSTRACT

The metabolism of butyrate-3-¹⁴C administered intraruminally to goats either fasted and phlorizinized, fasted, or fasted and pregnant was studied under conditions of butyric acid loading. In addition, tracer amounts of butyrate-3-¹⁴C were infused intraruminally to a fed goat. The specific activity of the plasma and urine ketones compared to rumen butyrate indicated that butyrate contributed at least 20–40% to the production of both ß-hydroxybutyrate and acetoacetate plus acetone, in both the fed and fasted ruminant. When ketone body accumulation from butyrate was minimal, as in the fed and fasted nonpregnant ruminant, the total incorporation of the label from butyrate-3-¹⁴C into plasma glucose and liver glycogen increased relative to that found in the ketotic ruminants, but in no animals were major amounts of butyrate-¹⁴C incorporated into glucose or glycogen. The contribution of rumen butyrate or its metabolites to carbon dioxide production in the fasting ruminant under butyrate loading amounted to 15–20%.

¹ Published with the approval of the Director of the Wisconsin Agricultural Experiment Station. Supported in part by Grant AMO8546-01 from the National Institute of Arthritis and Metabolic Diseases.

² Recipient of a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship. Present address: Department of Clinical Biochemistry, University of Munich, Munich, Germany.