Video Transcript
How many molecules of reduced NAD
are produced when one glucose molecule undergoes glycolysis?
Cellular respiration is a process
used by organisms to extract energy from glucose 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 in cellular
respiration is glycolysis. Let’s go over the steps of
glycolysis to see how many molecules of reduced NAD are produced.
To start, one molecule of glucose
is phosphorylated twice to form fructose 1,6-bisphosphate. To do this, two molecules of ATP
are converted to ADP. Then fructose 1,6-bisphosphate is
broken down into two molecules of glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate. Next, each molecule of
glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate is converted into a molecule of pyruvate.
In this process, two molecules of
ADP are phosphorylated to ATP, and a single molecule of NAD is reduced to NADH. The net result of this from a
single molecule of glucose is two molecules of pyruvate, two molecules of ATP, and
two molecules of NADH.
To answer our question, two
molecules of reduced NAD are produced when one molecule of glucose undergoes
glycolysis.
