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What is meant by lactic acid fermentation? Lactic acid fermentation is a mechanism for generating energy without oxygen, i.e. an anaerobic metabolic process. Prokaryotic organisms - organisms without a cell nucleus, such as bacteria, often live in an environment in which there is not much oxygen. A variety of different fermentation processes are known for them, which are characterized by the respective end product: in the metabolic pathway of lactic acid fermentation, pyruvate (remember, comes from glycolysis) is broken down into lactic acid (or its salt lactate). The reduction of pyruvate to lactate can be observed not only in many microorganisms - above all, of course, lactic acid bacteria - but also in the muscle tissue of us vertebrates. While the energy required for muscle contraction is usually produced aerobically and oxygen is made available to the muscle via the bloodstream, the oxygen supply to the muscles via the bloodstream is no longer sufficient, especially during high levels of physical exertion - in order to still generate energy, the muscle cells begin lactic acid fermentation as an alternative metabolic process that does not require oxygen. Whether an organism uses the much less efficient, anaerobic metabolic processes to generate energy depends to a large extent on its lifestyle and environment. The exact process of lactic acid fermentation is explained in more detail in this video. Alcoholic fermentation is then examined in more detail in another video.