Net portal appearance of volatile fatty acids in sheep intraruminally infused with mixtures of acetate, propionate, isobutyrate, butyrate, and valerate

The net portal appearance of volatile fatty acids (VFA) was investigated in four ruminally fistulated and multicatheterized sheep. During the experiments, the sheep were fed once every hour for 14 h and intraruminally infused with mixtures of VFA for the 12 h commencing 2 h after the initiation of the hourly feeding protocol. Paired arterial and portal blood samples were obtained hourly during the last 6 h of the experiments. In the control treatment (1), only water was infused intraruminally. In Treatments 2 through 4, the intraruminal infusion rates of propionate (40 mmol/h), isobutyrate (5 mmol/h), and valerate (5 mmol/h) were unchanged. In Treatments 2, 3, and 4, the acetate infusion rate was 100, 60, and 20 mmol/h, respectively, and the butyrate infusion rate was 10, 30, and 50 mmol/h, respectively. Thus, the infusion rate of VFA carbon was constant across Treatments 2 through 4. Portal recovery estimated from the increased net portal appearance in Treatments 2 through 4 compared to the control treatment was 85% for propionate and 60% for isobutyrate, and these recoveries were unaffected by treatment. The portal recovery of butyrate increased (from 21 to 32%) with increasing infusion rate of butyrate and decreasing infusion rate of acetate, as did the portal recovery of valerate (from 14 to 31%). The portal recovery of acetate was 55%, when measured as net portal appearance. Thus, it seems that the capacity for beta-oxidation in ruminal epithelium is limited, which would explain the increasing portal recovery of butyrate and valerate with increasing infusion rate of butyrate, when infusion rate of VFA carbon is unchanged.