Question

Explain the process of respiration and  breakdown of glucose by various pathways?can you plz explain this into simple ways for school students?

Answer 1

Glycolysis is the first type of metabolic pathway in the cell (it takes place in the cytosol – cytoplasm of cells) in all types of living organisms. This pathway does not require oxygen; this is why it is also the first pathway in the anaerobic breakdown of glucose (in addition to the aerobic breakdown of glucose and is the primary energy source for most organism, such as bacteria). In this process, one molecule of glucose is converted into two molecules of pyruvate (or pyruvic acid), which generates energy in the form of two ATP molecules (two net molecules). In actual fact, there are four molecules of ATP which are produced per molecule of glucose; however, two of these are used, which is why at this stage, the net total of ATP molecules is +2.