The adsorption of human salivary mucins (HWSM, 0.4 mg/ml) onto hydroxyapatite (HAP) was studied in the presence of varying amounts of the phosphoprotein phosvitin by three different procedures. a. Preadsorption of HWSM onto HAP for 20 h, followed by 4 h coadsorption with phosvitin, resulted in a decrease of 50% in HWSM binding to HAP with 0.3 mg/ml phosvitin and a complete desorption with 1.0 mg/ml phosvitin. b. Preincubation of HAP with phosvitin for 20 h, followed by 4 h coadsorption with HWSM, resulted in decrease of 50% in HWSM binding to HAP with 0.15 mg/ml phosvitin and the adsorption of HWSM was prevented completely with 1.0 mg/ml phosvitin. c. Simultaneous incubation of HWSM and phosvitin gave the least adsorption of HWSM to HAP: a decrease of 50% with as little as 0.025 mg/ml phosvitin and a nearly complete desorption with 0.3 mg/ml phosvitin. Similarly, the adsorption of phosvitin was strongly inhibited by HWSM after either simultaneous adsorption or preadsorption with HWSM. However, after preincubation of HAP with phosvitin, desorption of phosvitin by HWSM was not achieved. Release of phosphate increased by preadsorption with HWSM followed by incubation with phosvitin, but was lowered by about 50% after preadsorption with phosvitin. After simultaneous incubation of HAP with both species, the adsorption did not result in release of phosphate ions. Calcium release was only substantial when phosvitin was in excess in solution. The smallest release of calcium ions was observed when HAP was preincubated with phosvitin, followed by coadsorption with HWSM.