Cellular Respiration Essay

The most vital process that occurs in cells is cellular respiration. Cellular respiration is a metabolic process by which oxygen is used in the mitochondria to break down glucose in order to release stored energy. The process uses glucose and oxygen to generate carbon dioxide, water and ATP. The ATP produced is the main source of energy in organisms. Cellular respiration can occur via two processes: aerobic and aerobic respiration.
Aerobic respiration is far more common, and efficient than anaerobic respiration. Aerobic respiration produces 38 ATP molecules are created for every glucose molecule, whereas anaerobic produces only 2 ATP molecules. The pathway cellular respiration takes place to produce ATP depends on oxygen being available or absent
Aerobic respiration is the main process of energy production and begins with the first step: glycolysis, which is the breaking down of glucose within the cytoplasm in order to form pyruvate. Each molecule of glucose produces two pyruvate molecules. The main reason for oxygen is due to the oxidization of pyruvate from glycolysis.
The pyruvic acid produced from glycolysis is altered and enters the inside of the mitochondria where the rest of cellular respiration will take place. This cycle makes the necessary precursors for the final stage of cellular respiration. The Krebs cycle is a repeating process, it performs two cycles for every molecule of glucose. The end products produced are ATP is produced which is energy, while FADH2 and NADH are precursors that make many molecules of ATP in the final step of