The Cori cycle (also known as the lactic acid cycle), named after its discoverers, Carl Ferdinand Cori and Gerty Cori, is a metabolic pathway in which lactate, produced by anaerobic glycolysis in muscles, is transported to the liver and converted to glucose, which then returns to the muscles and is cyclically metabolized back to lactate.
is transported back to the liver where it is converted into by the Cori cycle using the enzyme lactate dehydrogenase. . Pyruvate, the first designated substrate of the gluconeogenic pathway, can then be used to generate glucose.