lactic acid fermentation

traitmech:000026 · CLASS · REVIEWED

A fermentation in which sugars are converted mainly to lactate, with ATP generated by substrate-level phosphorylation. Homolactic fermentation yields ~2 lactate per glucose via glycolysis; heterolactic fermentation also yields ethanol/acetate and CO2. Characteristic of lactic acid bacteria (e.g. Lactobacillus, Lactococcus).

Lactic acid fermentation converts sugars to lactate

Evidence-backed causal sketch linking glycolysis-coupled lactate production to substrate-level ATP generation in lactic acid bacteria.

Lactic acid fermentation converts sugars to lactate Interactive directed graph showing evidence-backed causal relationships for lactic acid fermentation.

Edge evidence

  • lactic acid fermentation participates in fermentation biolink:participates_in

    Lactic acid fermentation is a class of fermentation metabolism.

    • DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2021.703525 Energy-conservation review supports lactate as a fermentation end product.
  • lactic acid fermentation produces lactate METPO:2007800

    Lactate is the characteristic end product of the pathway.

    • DOI:10.3390/molecules31020333 Classical-fermentation review describes the lactic-acid pathway.
  • glucose is fermented via EMP/glycolysis pathway

    Homofermentative LAB ferment glucose mainly via the EMP/glycolysis pathway.

    • DOI:10.3390/fermentation10030168 homofermentative LAB rely mainly on glycolysis (EMP).
  • EMP/glycolysis pathway has output pyruvate RO:0002234

    Glycolysis yields pyruvate as the intermediate reduced to lactate.

    • DOI:10.3390/foods12152850 Glycolysis of glucose generates pyruvate, which lactate dehydrogenase reduces to lactate.
  • pyruvate is converted by lactate dehydrogenase

    Pyruvate is the substrate of lactate dehydrogenase.

    • DOI:10.3390/foods12152850 Lactate dehydrogenase converts pyruvate to lactate.
  • lactate dehydrogenase produces lactate METPO:2007800

    Lactate dehydrogenase reduces pyruvate to lactate.

    • DOI:10.3390/foods12152850 one mole of glucose produces two moles of lactic acid and two ATP molecules via LDH.
  • phosphoketolase pathway yields lactate biolink:produces

    Heterofermentative phosphoketolase route yields lactate among its products.

    • DOI:10.3390/fermentation10030168 products are lactate, carbon dioxide, and either ethanol or acetate (phosphoketolase route).
  • phosphoketolase pathway yields carbon dioxide biolink:produces

    Heterolactic phosphoketolase route co-produces CO2.

    • DOI:10.3390/fermentation10030168 heterolactic products are lactate, carbon dioxide, and ethanol or acetate.
  • phosphoketolase pathway yields ethanol biolink:produces

    Heterolactic phosphoketolase route co-produces ethanol (or acetate).

    • DOI:10.3390/fermentation10030168 heterolactic products include ethanol or acetate.
  • lactate causes decreased pH biolink:causes

    Accumulation of lactic acid acidifies the medium.

    • DOI:10.3390/fermentation10030168 acidification from lactic acid exerts antagonistic effects on microbes.
  • decreased pH inhibits pathogenic/spoilage microbe RO:0002212

    Lactate-driven acidification inhibits spoilage and pathogenic microbes (biopreservation).

    • DOI:10.3390/fermentation10030168 higher lactic acid / lower pH increases inhibition of spoilage and pathogenic microbes.

Provenance

Source
METPO (2025-11-25)
Definition source
DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2021.703525

Parent traits (1)

Synonyms (1)

  • lactate fermentation RELATED_SYNONYM · DOI:10.3389/fmicb.2021.703525

kg-microbe context

Matched 1 kg-microbe node via parent_proxy.

  • METPO:1002005 [-0.758, -6.428, +3.551, +10.454, …]

512-dim DeepWalkSkipGramEnsmallen embedding from kg-microbe (2026-04-25).

Nearest neighbors in embedding space

Top-8 cosine-similar METPO traits from the 2026-04-25 deepwalk (512-D).

Deep research

Generated by just research-trait; source: research/traits/metabolism/lactic_acid_fermentation-deep-research-falcon.md

Unreviewed literature output — not curated TraitMech content Ontology identifiers suggested below have not been resolved against their ontologies, and some are known to be wrong. Check any CURIE against the source before using it.
# TraitMech curation report: lactic acid fermentation

## 1. Trait record and scope

- **Trait label:** lactic acid fermentation
- **Trait identifier:** `traitmech:000026`
- **Category / kind / status:** METABOLISM / CLASS / REVIEWED
- **Parent:** `METPO:1002005`
- **Synonym:** lactate fermentation

### Operational definition

This trait is the microbial capacity to conserve energy by fermentatively converting carbohydrate-derived pyruvate mainly to lactate. ATP is generated principally by substrate-level phosphorylation in glycolysis, while lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) reoxidizes NADH to NAD+, allowing glycolysis to continue. In the canonical homolactic route, one glucose gives approximately two pyruvate, two lactate, and net two ATP; reported experimental lactate yields are approximately 0.74–0.99 g per g substrate versus a theoretical value near 1 g/g. (gayathri2023roleofaerobic pages 4-6, gayathri2023roleofaerobic pages 7-8, bintsis2018lacticacidbacteria pages 1-3)

The class should include both:

1. **Homolactic fermentation:** lactate is the dominant carbon end product, commonly through the Embden–Meyerhof–Parnas pathway.
2. **Heterolactic fermentation:** the phosphoketolase pathway yields lactate together with CO2 and ethanol and/or acetate. Product allocation depends on redox balance and growth conditions. (bintsis2018lacticacidbacteria pages 1-3, bintsis2018lacticacidbacteria pages 3-7)

### Boundary cases

Do **not** equate the trait with any observation of lactate production. The following should normally be excluded or separately represented:

- **Aerobic glycolysis/Warburg metabolism:** lactate production in oxygenated eukaryotic cells is not necessarily microbial fermentation.
- **Malolactic fermentation:** malate is decarboxylated to lactate and CO2; this is an acid-modulating conversion, not sugar-to-lactate energy metabolism.
- **Lactate oxidation or assimilation:** lactate is the substrate rather than the fermentation product.
- **Chemical lactic-acid synthesis** and polymerization to polylactic acid.
- **Mixed-acid fermentation with only minor lactate:** curate as lactic acid fermentation only if lactate is a defining or major end product under the assayed condition.
- **Genotype-only predictions:** the presence of an `ldh` homolog is insufficient because LDHs can differ in stereospecificity, direction, cofactor use, and physiological role.

Fermentation mode is also condition-dependent. Carbon limitation, temperature, pH, oxygen, and NADH-reoxidation capacity can redirect nominally homofermentative organisms toward mixed products. Obligately heterofermentative examples include *Lactobacillus brevis*, *L. fermentum*, and *L. reuteri*, whereas *Lactiplantibacillus plantarum*, *Lactococcus lactis*, *L. casei*, and *L. rhamnosus* can exhibit facultative heterofermentative behavior. (bintsis2018lacticacidbacteria pages 1-3, bintsis2018lacticacidbacteria pages 3-7)

## 2. Candidate graph nodes

### Pathways and biological processes

- Lactic acid fermentation — `traitmech:000026`
- Glycolytic process / EMP pathway — `GO:0006096`
- Substrate-level phosphorylation — label-only pending identifier verification
- Homolactic fermentation — label-only candidate
- Heterolactic phosphoketolase pathway — label-only candidate
- NAD+ regeneration — label-only candidate
- Pyruvate-to-lactate fermentation — label-only candidate
- Acid-stress response — label-only candidate
- Intracellular-pH homeostasis — label-only candidate
- Lactate export — label-only candidate
- Mixed-acid fermentation — label-only boundary node

### Chemicals and cofactors

- Glucose — `CHEBI:17234`
- Pyruvate — `CHEBI:15361`
- Lactate, unspecified stereochemistry — `CHEBI:24996`
- L-lactate — `CHEBI:57945`
- D-lactate — `CHEBI:16004`
- NADH — `CHEBI:16908`
- NAD+ — `CHEBI:57540`
- ATP — `CHEBI:15422`
- Carbon dioxide — `CHEBI:16526`
- Ethanol — retain label-only here pending CURIE verification

Showing the first 60 of 248 lines of findings; the linked file also carries the run's front matter and the prompt it was given — read the full report.

Curation history

  1. · PROPOSED_FROM_RESEARCH · claude

    Proposed candidate METABOLISM trait (lactic acid fermentation); product-specific sub-variant of the existing Fermentation class (METPO:1002005).

  2. · CURATED_CAUSAL_GRAPH · claude

    Added evidence-backed causal graph (lactic acid fermentation / lactate production) with GO node grounding and METPO/biolink predicate groundings; promoted PROPOSED to REVIEWED.

  3. · GROUND_CAUSAL_NODES · claude

    Grounded 1 causal-node grounding field(s) via mappings/node_grounding.tsv (CHEBI:24996×1).

  4. · ENRICH_CAUSAL_GRAPH · claude

    Added 9 evidence-backed generic edges (9 new nodes) from the deep-research report.

  5. · GROUND_CAUSAL_PREDICATES · claude

    Grounded 7 causal-edge predicate_id field(s) via mappings/predicate_grounding.tsv (biolink:produces×3, METPO:2000202×2, biolink:causes×1, RO:0002212×1).

  6. · GROUND_CAUSAL_NODES · claude

    Grounded 3 causal-node grounding field(s) via mappings/node_grounding.tsv (CHEBI:17234×1, CHEBI:16526×1, CHEBI:16236×1).

  7. · GROUND_CAUSAL_NODES · claude

    Grounded 1 causal-node grounding field(s) via mappings/node_grounding.tsv (CHEBI:15361×1).

  8. · GROUND_CAUSAL_NODES · claude

    Grounded 1 causal-node grounding field(s) via mappings/node_grounding.tsv (UniProtKB:A0A073JRC3×1).

  9. · RETRACT_DEAD_UNIPROT_GROUNDINGS · claude

    Retracted 1 UniProtKB grounding(s) whose accessions are deleted from UniProt; nodes demoted to label-only pending re-grounding (docs/GROUNDING_POLICY.md)

  10. · GROUND_CAUSAL_NODES · claude

    Grounded 1 causal-node grounding field(s) via mappings/node_grounding.tsv (GO:0004457×1).

  11. · MIGRATE_MICROBE_DOMAIN_EDGES · claude

    Re-grounded 1 causal edge(s) off microbe-domain METPO predicates (1 to has output), issue 301. The previous predicates are transitively rdfs:subPropertyOf METPO:2000001, whose rdfs:domain is METPO:1000525 (microbe), so a causal-graph subject entailed that the subject IS a microbe; CausalNodeTypeEnum has no organism member, so no such edge could ever satisfy the domain. Edge directions are unchanged - this pass only relabels and re-grounds. RO:0002234 (has output) is used where the subject is an activity, since biolink gives it the domain 'biological process or activity'; the METPO replacements are proposed in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v8 and v9 and are placeholder ids until METPO mints them.

  12. · MIGRATE_MICROBE_DOMAIN_EDGES_PART2 · claude

    Re-grounded 2 causal edge(s) off microbe-domain METPO predicates onto their causal-graph counterparts (2 to produces), issue 301 part 2. The previous predicates are transitively rdfs:subPropertyOf METPO:2000001, whose rdfs:domain is METPO:1000525 (microbe), so a causal-graph subject entailed that the subject IS a microbe; CausalNodeTypeEnum has no organism member, so no such edge could ever satisfy the domain. Each replacement is a 1:1 mirror of its source predicate that changes only the domain, so the claim each edge makes is unchanged and directions are unchanged. The replacements are proposed in proposals/metpo_traitmech_v9 and are placeholder ids until METPO mints them.