Anthony Tucker Period 2 12/7/11

Video on Cellular Respiration

The first law of thermodynamics states that energy cannot be created nor can it be destroyed. It can only be released or stored. Cellular respiration is the process that releases the stored energy from food. In order for growth in living things, proteins, carbohydrates, fats, and nucleic acids must be made. The energy for the construction of these complex macromolecules is needed by an outside source. The cellular energy required is stored in food which originally derived its energy from the sun.

Respiration is often confused with breathing. Breathing is only a step in respiration. Cellular respiration consists of three stages. The first is the external stage: breathing movements that exchange gases between air sacs in the lungs and the bloodstream. The second is the internal stage: the exchange of gases between blood and cells. The last stage is the cellular stage which is the combination of food and oxygen to release energy. Breathing is a physical process that allows us to come into contact with gases in the air such as oxygen.

Through diffusion, food cells and oxygen travel in the blood to all the cells in the body. Cells contain organelles which help carry out the work of the cell. The mitochondria supply most of the energy needs of the cell. In nature the combination of oxygen with a substance is referred to as oxidation. A very rapid oxidation reaction causes combustion which mostly releases heat and less energy. Cellular respiration releases energy slowly so that cells can

be as efficient as possible. Cells can extract about 40% of the energy in a glucose molecule. An analogy often used is that of a car extracting energy from gasoline slowly and not in one huge explosive reaction. Even with the slow extraction of energy from gasoline, the energy release efficiency from glucose by cellular respiration supersedes it.

Usable energy is derived from cellular respiration in the form of a molecule called ATP. Adenosine tri phosphate powers ALL living things. The products from cellular respiration are 6 carbon dioxide molecules, 6 water molecules, and 36 ATP molecules. The number of ATP molecules sometimes varies depending on the needs of the cell. Each step in cellular respiration is controlled by enzymes. ATP provides energy by donating one phosphate group out of the three that it has to special receptors throughout the cell. It then becomes ADP which is replenished to ATP by cellular respiration.

Most living things on Earth require oxygen. Before Earth was an oxygen plenty biosphere however, organisms produced their energy from anaerobic respiration which is the release of energy in living things without oxygen. Today organisms still use anaerobic respiration in the initial stages of the respiration process. This process begins with the molecule glucose which is a product of photosynthesis. Animals can digest glucose in the form of starch, a long chain of glucose molecules. Glycolysis (another word for anaerobic respiration) splits glucose and goes through many enzymes to produce pyruvate and 2 net ATP molecules. Two ATPs are initially used and 4 ATPs are the output. More than 90% of the energy in glucose is not released in glycolysis. Most of the energy in food is released

by aerobic respiration which occurs in the mitochondria. It is much more efficient and it consists of the Citric Acid cycle and Oxidative Phosphorylation.