Bio Final Exam Notes

Major Chemical Properties for Cellular Respiration: We need oxygen at the cellular level for this to be complete. Why do you need oxygen? What is your body trying to do? Your body needs to produce energy, which is why you go through these metabolic processes, and that’s ultimately why you need oxygen. So we are trying to produce ATP as our energy source. So ultimately your energy cannot be created, it only changes form, so where does that energy come from in your body? We’re going to convert it into ATP, because your cells need ATP to do work – its like the monetary value for your cells. So where does the energy, how do you get your energy to begin with? Sugar – you have to eat food, there’s energy stored in the chemical bonds of the food. So when it goes through the digestive process your going to break it down into glucose. So basically your trying to get from glucose to ATP – the energy in the bonds of the glucose to the energy of the bonds in ATP. There are 3 major processes that allow that to happen – glycolysis (this is where you need 2 ATPs to get it going, it breaks glucose into 2 3-carbon molecules, you produce 4 ATPs. This part of the reaction is anaerobic. This takes place in the cell cytoplasm. It’s not very efficient at this point because for every glucose molecule you’re only getting a net gain of 2 ATPs. If you don’t get any glucose into the system, those breakdown products end up as lactic acid. If lactic acid builds up you get cramps, it changes the pH. So ultimately, you do have oxygen coming in, to drive this to the next step), Citric Acid Cycle (or Krebs Cycle – Occurs in mitochondria of the cell. – Just need to know the general – so in the Krebs Cycle you have the breakdown products from glycolysis – you have 2 3-carbon compounds, 1 carbon from each 3-carbon goes to CO2 and the other 2-carbon enters the cycle to combine with oxalalocetic acid, which makes citric acid. Its cycling and your producing more CO2. The big thing that coms out of the