What part of the mitochondria creates more space for cellular respiration and how?In what form energy produced by mitochondria is stored?
Answers
Answer:
The large amount of free energy released when H+ flows back into the matrix (across the inner membrane) provides the basis for ATP production in the matrix by a remarkable protein machine—the ATP synthase.
Mitochondria are usually depicted as stiff, elongated cylinders with a diameter of 0.5–1 μm, resembling bacteria. Time-lapse microcinematography of living cells, however, shows that mitochondria are remarkably mobile and plastic organelles, constantly changing their shape (Figure 14-4) and even fusing with one another and then separating again. As they move about in the cytoplasm, they often seem to be associated with microtubules (Figure 14-5), which can determine the unique orientation and distribution of mitochondria in different types of cells. Thus, the mitochondria in some cells form long moving filaments or chains. In others they remain fixed in one position where they provide ATP directly to a site of unusually high ATP consumption—packed between adjacent myofibrils in a cardiac muscle cell, for example, or wrapped tightly around the flagellum in a sperm (Figure 14-6).