Cellular respiration describes the metabolic reactions and processes that take place in a cell or across the cell membrane to obtain biochemical energy from fuel molecules and the release of the cells' waste products. Energy is released by the oxidation of fuel molecules and is stored as "high-energy" carriers. The reactions involved in respiration are catabolic reactions in metabolism.
Fuel molecules commonly used by cells in respiration include glucose, amino acids and fatty acids, and a common oxidizing agent (electron acceptor) is molecular oxygen (O2). There are organisms, however, that can respire using other organic molecules as electron acceptors instead of oxygen. Organisms that use oxygen as a final electron acceptor in respiration are described as aerobic, while those that do not are referred to as anaerobic.
The energy released in respiration is used to synthesize molecules that act as a chemical storage of this energy. One of the most widely used compounds in a cell is adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and its stored chemical energy can be used for many processes requiring energy, including biosynthesis, locomotion or transportation of molecules across cell membranes. Because of its ubiquitous nature, ATP is also known as the "universal energy currency", since the amount of it in a cell indicates how much energy is available for energy-consuming processes.
Aerobic respiration requires oxygen in order to generate energy (ATP). It is the preferred method of pyruvate breakdown from glycolysis and requires that pyruvate enter the mitochondrion to be fully oxidized by the Krebs cycle. The product of this process is energy in the form of ATP (Adenosine Triphosphate), by substrate-level phosphorylation, NADH and FADH2.
Simplified Reaction: C6H12O6 (aq) + 6O2 (g) → 6CO2 (g) + 6H2O (l) ΔHc -2880 kJ
The reducing potential of NADH and FADH2 is converted to more ATP through an electron transport chain with oxygen as the "terminal electron acceptor". Most of the ATP produced by aerobic cellular respiration is made by oxidative phosphorylation. This works by the energy released in the consumption of pyruvate being used to create a chemiosmotic potential by pumping protons across a membrane. This potential is then used to drive ATP synthase and produce ATP from ADP. Biology textbooks often state that between 36-38 ATP molecules can be made per oxidised glucose molecule during cellular respiration (2 from glycolysis, 2 from the Krebs cycle, and about 32-34 from the electron transport system). Generally, 38 ATP molecules are formed from aerobic respiration. However, this maximum yield is never quite reached due to losses (leaky membranes) as well as the cost of moving pyruvate and ADP into the mitochondrial matrix.
Aerobic metabolism is 19 times more efficient than anaerobic metabolism (which yields 2 mol ATP per 1 mol glucose). They share the initial pathway of glycolysis but aerobic metabolism continues with the Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation. The post glycolytic reactions take place in the mitochondria in eukaryotic cells, and in the cytoplasm in prokaryotic cells.
