Anaerobic glycolysis proton production

That lactic acid is the end product of anaerobic glycolysis in muscle tissue has been known for all of this century (Fig. 1). Cell-free extracts able to catalyze the oxidation of lactate to pyruvate were first obtained in 1932 (5). Warburg (6) and von Euler (7) and their colleagues discovered the above reaction [Eq. (1)] and associated it with the chemical properties of a coenzyme. Racker (8) demonstrated in 1950 that the forward reaction also involved the release of a proton. The first purified enzyme was reported by Straub (9) in 1940, while the first micrographs of LDH crystals were shown by Kubowitz and Ott (10). 

One of the early findings in experimental ischemia was the production of lactate and a concomitant proton which leads to tissue acidification (Lowry et al., 1964). The activation of anaerobic glycolysis produces tissue acidification which led to an... 

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