A nonenzymatic method for the determination of picomole amounts of lactate using HPLC: its application to single muscle fibers.

A method for the determination of lactate is described in which the esterification of lactate with the uv-absorbing compound alpha-p-dibromoacetophenone is followed by separation and quantitation of the ester by reversed-phase HPLC with detection at 254 nm. The reproducibility, detection limit, and precision of the method are comparable to those of conventional methods which use enzymatic cycling for enhanced performance. The applicability of this rapid and simple method is illustrated with the determination of picomole amounts of lactate in resting and stimulated single muscle fibers.