A method by which living organisms metabolise fats or sugars with the aid of Oxygen in order to generate energy. Aerobic metabolism is rather more efficient than anaerobic metabolism. It actually starts off with the Glycolysis process of anaerobic metabolism, and then continues with the krebs cycle and oxydative phosphorylation.
Glycolysis
Usually whatever is being metabolised is first converted to Acetyl-CoA, for sugars this would be by sugar->pyruvate by glycolysis then pyruvate->Acetyl-CoA. This process yields a net gain in energy in the form of ATP. If no oxygen is present, then the proces goes no further. (see also: anaerobic metabolism )
The word equation for aerobic respiration is glucose+oxygen=carbon dioxide+water+energy
Krebs cycle
When oxygen is present, Acetyl-CoA enters the citric acid cycle, and gets converted to CO2 while at the same time converting NAD + H to NADH.
And further
NADH can be used by several different processes to create further ATP.
Commonly Oxidative phosphorylation in the mitochondria, where oxygen is used to split the H off of NADH, and to produce further ATP in the process.
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See also
