Video Transcript
How many molecules of pyruvate does one glucose molecule undergoing glycolysis
produce?
Organisms can use a process called cellular respiration to break down glucose to get
energy in the form of ATP. There are four main stages of cellular respiration: glycolysis; the link reaction:
the citric acid cycle, also known as Krebs cycle; and the electron transport chain,
also known as oxidative phosphorylation. The first step is glycolysis, and this takes place in the cytoplasm of the cell. Let’s look at the steps of glycolysis and see how many molecules of pyruvate we get
from a single molecule of glucose.
We start with a molecule of glucose, which is phosphorylated twice, meaning two
phosphate groups are added to it. Two molecules of ATP are used in this process and turned into ADP. The result is a molecule of fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. Next, the fructose 1,6-bisphosphate is broken down into two molecules of
glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. Then, each molecule of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate is converted into a molecule of
pyruvate. In this process, a molecule of NAD+ is reduced to NADH and two molecules of ADP are
phosphorylated to ATP. The total net result leaves us with two NADH molecules, two ATP molecules, and two
molecules of pyruvate.
So to answer our question, one molecule of glucose that undergoes glycolysis produces
two molecules of pyruvate.
