BRAINCAKEAnaerobic Respiration - Mammals
Animals respire anaerobically as a means of overcoming a temporary shortage of oxygen. This is useful when the amount of oxygen is very low, for an animal living in water. However, anaerobic respiration most often occurs in muscles during strenuous exercise when oxygen is used up more rapidly than it is supplied. Pyruvate is reduced to lactate using the hydrogen from reduced NAD and NAD is regenerated so that glycolysis can continue.
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Key terms in this lesson
- glycolysis
- The first stage of respiration, occurring in the cytoplasm, in which glucose is split into two molecules of pyruvate with a net yield of 2 ATP and reduced NAD.
- pyruvate
- The three-carbon end product of glycolysis, which enters the mitochondrion for the link reaction in the presence of oxygen or is reduced to lactate or ethanol in its absence.
- anaerobic respiration
- Respiration that occurs without oxygen, in which pyruvate is reduced to ethanol (in plants and yeast) or lactate (in mammals) to regenerate NAD so that glycolysis can continue.
More in Respiration
- Lysis
- Substrate Level Phosphorylation
- The Link Reaction
- The Krebs Cycle.
- oxidative phosphorylation
- ATP Synthase
- ATP Synthase
- Anaerobic Respiration - Plants and Microorganisms.
All 12 lessons in Respiration · All AQA A-level Biology topics