L-lactate as an indicator for cellular metabolic status: An easy and cost-effective colorimetric L-lactate assay

Background: In recent times, the study of metabolic pathways has become inevitable and predominant for a variety of research fields as Cancer biology and immunology. L-lactate as a product of anaerobic glycolysis has shown to be an important indicator of the cellular metabolic status and can be associated with diverse cellular effects. For this reason, L-lactate assay kits are of high demand when metabolic effects need to be considered. Nevertheless, commercially available kits are not affordable if multiple samples must be evaluated.

Principal finding: In this work, we develop an easy and cost-effective colorimetric assay for quantification of L-lactate suitable for cells with low or high L-lactate production based on LDH activity and suitable for 96 well-plate format. Using different metabolic regulators, we demonstrate the capacity of the assay to detect and quantify L-lactate from the supernatant of HeLa Cancer cell line. Furthermore, we validate the assay against a commercially available kit by demonstrating no significant difference between both assays. Finally, we show that the assay is capable of quantifying L-lactate in primary cells such as hPBMCs that were stimulated with Toll-like Receptor ligands and treated with different metabolic regulators.

Conclusion: We herein present an easy custom assay that is suitable for cells with low and high L-lactate production at very low cost compared to commercially available kits. These advantages of the custom assay can simplify the research in the field of metabolism and related fields.