The present study investigated the effects of MCI-727 (I), a new anti-ulcer agent, on plasma immunoreactive secretin concentration in rats and dogs using secretin-specific RIA with the ethanol extraction method.Plasma secretin levels were increased dose-dependently 10 min after oral administration of 10, 30 and 100 mg/kg of MCI-727 in rats.Teprenone also caused a significant increase of plasma secretin at 10 min after oral administration at the doses of 30, 100 and 300 mg/kg.Under the same conditions, MCI-727 and teprenone did not alter the plasma immunoreactive gastrin concentration in rats.From the results of the time course study, the increasing effect of MCI-727 (30 mg/kg, p.o) on plasma secretin remained for at least 240 min after administration.On the other hand, the increasing effect of teprenone (200 mg/kg, p.o.) was only observed at 30 and 60 min after administration.Furthermore, MCI-727 had increasing effects on plasma secretin concentration in dogs, but teprenone had no effects in this species.The volume of pancreatic secretion and the pancreatic bicarbonate output increased after intra-duodenal administration of MCI-727 at 30 and 100 mg/kg in rats.Similar effects were also observed with teprenone (30-300 mg/kg i.d.) or secretin (Secrepan, 0.1-1.0 unit/kg, i.v.).