{"id":173591,"date":"2018-02-20T23:50:30","date_gmt":"2018-02-20T23:50:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/writemyessayfree.com\/if-the-main-purpose-of-cellular-respiration-is-to-make-atp-why-do-glycolysis-and-the-krebs-cycle-only-make-4-total-atp-by-the-time-glucose-is-converted-to-carbon-dioxide"},"modified":"2018-10-24T09:08:07","modified_gmt":"2018-10-24T09:08:07","slug":"if-the-main-purpose-of-cellular-respiration-is-to-make-atp-why-do-glycolysis-and-the-krebs-cycle-only-make-4-total-atp-by-the-time-glucose-is-converted-to-carbon-dioxide","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/if-the-main-purpose-of-cellular-respiration-is-to-make-atp-why-do-glycolysis-and-the-krebs-cycle-only-make-4-total-atp-by-the-time-glucose-is-converted-to-carbon-dioxide\/","title":{"rendered":"If the main purpose of cellular respiration is to make ATP, why do glycolysis and the Krebs Cycle only make 4 total ATP by the time glucose is converted to carbon dioxide?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The answer is that 4 ATP is all those processes are able to produce directly.<\/p>\n<p>The chemical processes of breaking down glucose into ##CO_2## and ##H_2O## is only able to directly generate 4 ATP &#8211; 2 in the glycolysis chain and 2 in the Krebs cycle. ATP is generated in this process by either first attaching a phosphate to the sugar and then transferring it to ADP to make ATP (in glycolysis), or by transferring just enough energy that a phosphate can be added to ADP to make ATP (in the Krebs cycle). These transfers are mediated by enzymes, without which they cannot occur.<\/p>\n<p>Simple organisms use very little energy, and are perfectly content to function in an anaerobic environment, using in fact only the 2 ATP produced from glycolysis.<\/p>\n<p>However, in the presence of oxygen, much more energy can be extracted by passing the other carrier molecules &#8211; ##&#8221;NADP&#8221;## and ##&#8221;FADH&#8221;_2## to the electron transport chain, where additional ATP is produced.<\/p>\n<p>One thing to keep in mind is that each step in the process is a drop in the chemical energy. In the absence of oxygen, there is only so far the energy can fall. The presence of oxygen lowers the &#8220;energy floor&#8221;, allowing a further total energy drop which can be harnessed to make ATP. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The answer is that 4 ATP is all those processes are able to produce directly. The chemical processes of breaking down glucose into ##CO_2## and ##H_2O## is only able to directly generate 4 ATP &#8211; 2 in the glycolysis chain <a href=\"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/if-the-main-purpose-of-cellular-respiration-is-to-make-atp-why-do-glycolysis-and-the-krebs-cycle-only-make-4-total-atp-by-the-time-glucose-is-converted-to-carbon-dioxide\/\" class=\"read-more\">Read More &#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-173591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173591","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173591"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173591\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173591"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173591"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.benedictsol.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173591"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}