Secretin-like Activity of Dopamine on Canine Pancreatic Secretion

Abstract

The composition of the pancreatic secretion was analyzed when the secretion was increased by intravenous infusions of dopamine from 0.03 to 0.5mg/min, highly purified secretin (Jorpes) from 0.03 to 0.5 U/min and pancreozymin (Boots) from 0.03 to 0.5 U/min in dogs. Dopamine and secretin caused the production of a large volume of juice containing a high concentration of bicarbonate but had little effect on protein output. On the other hand, pancreozymin caused a marked increase in output of total protein but little increase in the secretion and bicarbonate concentration. The effects of dopamine from 0.03 to 0.5mg/min i. v. on the secretory volume and the bicarbonate excretion roughly corresponded to those of secretin from 0.03 to 0.5 U/min i. v. The activities of lipase, amylase and trypsin per unit volume (=1 ml) of the juice obtained with pancreozymin (0.3 to 0.5 U/min) were higher than those with either dopamine (0.3 to 0.5mg/min) or secretin (0.3 to 0.5 U/min). These experiments show that dopamine has a secretin-like action on the pancreatic secretion.