ABSTRACT
L-Lactate, the only known anaerobic end-product in decapod crustaceans (Gade, 1983), increases haemocyanin oxygen-affinity (Truchot, 1980; Mangum, 1983; Bridges and Morris, 1986). In exercised blue crabs, Callinectes sapidus, the decrease in haemocyanin oxygen-affinity induced by metabolic acidosis via the Bohr shift was substantially balanced by the opposing effect of L-lactate (Booth et al. 1982). Since this study, Morris et al. (1985) have discovered that urate also enhances haemocyanin oxygen-affinity in the crayfish Austropotamobius pallipes. The importance of urate in regulating oxygen transport during environmental hypoxia has recently been stressed in the crab Carcinus maenas and the prawn Penaeus japonicus (Lallier and Truchot, 1989a,b). Since Callinectes sapidus haemocyanin exhibits a urate effect (De Fur et al. 1990), urate may also play a role during functional anaerobiosis.
