[Lactate-guanidinium and lactate-lactate weak interactions in aqueous solutions]

Spectropolarimetry was used to quantify the guanidinium-lactate and lactate-lactate equilibrium reactions. Association constants for the guanidinium-lactate and lactate-lactate formations are 6.11 and 1.12, respectively, in aqueous solution. The value 6.11 is certainly high among electrostatic interactions in water. This stability, however, can not account for the extremely strong lactate-protein binding, observed by NMR spectroscopy. The molar rotation coefficients for both the heteroassociation and homoassociation complexes are also calculated. The homoassociative lactate-lactate binding is the first such interaction, whose constant has been determined by spectropolarimetry in aqueous solution.