Lactate

Lactate is the negatively charged form of lactic acid and predominates in biological fluids near neutral pH. Cells produce it during metabolism, and it can serve as a fuel and a transportable carbon source.

Lactate dehydrogenase: An enzyme that interconverts pyruvate and lactate while interconverting NADH and NAD⁺. It catalyzes the reversible reaction that forms lactate from pyruvate.
Lactic acid: An organic acid that can lose a proton to form lactate. At biological pH, this acid exists predominantly as its conjugate base, lactate.
Blood lactate test: A clinical measurement of lactate concentration in blood. It quantifies circulating lactate when assessing exercise responses or suspected tissue hypoperfusion.
Acidosis: A process or condition that lowers blood pH through respiratory or metabolic causes. Elevated lactate and low blood pH can occur together, but lactate alone does not define acidosis.
Anaerobic glycolysis: Glycolysis that proceeds when oxygen-dependent mitochondrial oxidation cannot meet cellular energy demands. This pathway regenerates NAD⁺ by converting pyruvate to lactate.
Pyruvate: A three-carbon molecule formed at the end of glycolysis and used in several metabolic pathways. It is the immediate precursor converted into lactate by lactate dehydrogenase.
Lactic acidosis: Metabolic acidosis associated with elevated blood lactate concentration. Lactate accumulation can accompany this serious acid–base disturbance.
Oxygen debt: A historical model describing elevated oxygen consumption after exercise as repayment for earlier oxygen shortage. Lactate is not simply a waste product that must be cleared by repaying an oxygen debt.
Monocarboxylate transporter: A membrane protein that transports lactate and other monocarboxylates across cell membranes. These transporters move lactate between cells and across tissue membranes.
Glycolysis: The cytosolic pathway that breaks glucose into pyruvate while generating ATP and NADH. Lactate production branches from the pyruvate made by this pathway.

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