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Respiration and Photosynthesis

Why is Usain Bolt so FAST ?!?


Why can Lance Armstrong climb so much better than most cyclists?

Individuals inherit various percentages of the two main types of muscle fibers, slow and fast
The difference between the two is the process each uses to make ATP
Slow fibers make it aerobically using oxygen
Good at slow, sustained production of ATP
Marathon runners (long distance) have a higher percentage of slow fibers
Cellular respiration
Fast fibers work anaerobically without oxygen
Good at explosive bursts of ATP production
Sprinters (short distance) have a higher percentage of fast fibers
ATP production is fast and cannot be sustained for long
Fermentation of lactic acid
The percentage of slow and fast muscle fibers determines the difference between track athletes

All of our cells harvest chemical energy (ATP) from our food
Aside: Dark vs Light meat ??

Introduction to Cellular Respiration
Photosynthesis and cellular respiration provide energy for life
Energy is necessary for life processes
These include growth, transport, manufacture, movement, reproduction, and others
Energy that supports life on Earth is captured from sun rays reaching Earth through plant, algae,
protist, and bacterial photosynthesis

Energy in sunlight is used in photosynthesis to make glucose from CO2 and H2O with release of O2


Other organisms use the O2 and energy in sugar and release CO2 and H2O
Together, these two processes are responsible for the majority of life on Earth

Graphic: CO2, water, and sunlight produce glucose and oxygen

Clicker: Cells capture energy released by cellular respiration by producing ATP
Clicker: The process of photosynthesis and cellular respiration are complementary. During energy
conversions, some energy is lost in the form of heat

Photosynthesis and aerobic respiration form a cycle (from book)
Aerobic respiration doesnt create energy it extracts it from food. All the food we eat originally gets
its energy from the sun through photosynthesis.
Photosynthesis allows plants and algae to capture the energy of sunlight and convert it into chemical
energy stored in sugar. Eating this sugar (or animals that have eaten this sugar) makes that stored
energy available to us.



Breathing supplies oxygen to our cells for use in cellular respiration and removes carbon dioxide
Breathing (respiration) and cellular respiration are closely related
Breathing is necessary for exchange of CO2 produced during cellular respiration for atmospheric
O2
Cellular respiration uses O2 to help harvest energy from glucose and produces CO2 in the process

The basic conversion of sugar via complete respiration:



For every 1 glucose, you make about 38 ATPs
The human body uses energy from ATP for all its activities
The average adult human needs about 2,200 kcal of energy per day (75% of our calories are used to
perform cellular processes vital to life; remaining 25% for physical activity)


Body Mass Index (BMI)
The Body Mass Index (BMI) estimates body fat based on height and weight. Its used by health care
professionals to get a rough estimate about whether a person is at risk for health problems related to
their weight.
People with a BMI between 25 and 29.9 are considered overweight.
People with a BMI of 30 and above are considered obese their BMI indicates that they have 20%
more body fat than is recommended for their height.
BMI can be misleading, though. It doesnt take muscle mass, gender, or frame size into account.
Obesity is influenced by biology and culture


Our bodies have evolved to hoard energy in the form of body fat to get through times of food scarcity.
When societies adopt American eating habits like fast food, snacks, and soda, they tend to gain weight.
Today food is abundant, and people are consuming many more Calories than during any other time in
history. Our bodies store extra Calories as fat.
Clicker: our bodies evolved to store fat and we are now an obese culture because we used to live in
situations where food was scarce and it was a survival advantage to store energy during times of
plenty for use during times of scarcity. Our foods used to be nutritionally dense but not very rich in
calories.

Food powers cellular work
Food is a source of chemical energy that powers our activities. The body breaks down food into
subunits that are used either as building blocks to make new organic molecules or as energy to fuel
cellular work.



Storing excess Calories
When we eat more Calories than our bodies require, we store the extra energy as glycogen in muscle
and liver cells or triglycerides in fat cells.


Glycogen is a complex animal carbohydrate, made up of linked chains of glucose molecules. Glycogen
is used in our body as short-term energy storage.

Once the bodys glycogen stores have been replenished, excess Calories are stored as triglyceride
molecules in fat cells. Triglycerides are a type of lipid found in fat cells that are used for long-term
energy storage.

The body burns fat only after it has already used up food molecules in the bloodstream and in stored
glycogen.
Because each type of energy-rich organic molecule we ingest stores a different amount of energy, the
things we eat can contribute to weight gain.

Portion size matters, too


The only way to gain weight is by taking in more Calories than we burn. If more food energy is taken
in than is used to power cellular reactions and physical movement, the excess (minus what is released
as heat with every energy conversion) is stored as fat.


Extracting energy from food
Energy from food is ultimately captured in
the form of adenosine triphosphate
(ATP).
To make ATP, our bodies break food
molecules into their smaller subunits
through the process of digestion. The
subunits leave the small intestine and enter
the bloodstream, where they are carried to
the bodys cells.
Inside the cells, enzymes break apart the bonds holding the subunits together. Then energy stored in
those bonds is captured and converted into the molecular bonds that make up ATP.

Cells tap energy from electrons falling from organic fuels to oxygen


The energy necessary for life is contained in the arrangement of electrons in chemical bonds in organic
molecules
An important question is how do cells extract this energy?
Cells tap energy from electrons falling from organic fuels to oxygen
When the carbon-hydrogen bonds of glucose are broken, electrons are transferred to oxygen
Oxygen has a strong tendency to attract electrons
On the other hand, cellular respiration is the controlled breakdown of organic molecules
Energy is released in small amounts that can be captured by a biological system and stored in ATP

Aerobic respiration: A closer look
Glycolysis takes place in the cytoplasm and is the first step of aerobic respiration. Glycolysis consists
of a series of reactions that breaks down sugar into smaller units.

The products of glycolysis enter the cells mitochondria. The second step of aerobic respiration is the
citric acid cycle, a series of reactions that helps extract energy (in the form of high-energy electrons)
from food. This process releases carbon dioxide, which is ultimately exhaled from an organisms lungs.
All bonds of glucose are broken in these first two phases
When bonds are broken, electrons are grabbed by shuttles, who bring them and dump them








Fermentation
If the rate at which cells consume oxygen exceeds the rate at which they take it in when we breathe,
the electron transport chain has no oxygen to which it can deliver electrons.
While glycolysis still occurs in the absence of oxygen, its products go to a different process
fermentation.
Fermentation occurs in the cytoplasm and converts the products of glycolysis into lactic acid or
alcohol. The only ATP produced is the small amount produced during glycolysis.




3 carbon molecule converted to lactic acid when there is a huge demand for ATP
When you stop sprinting, body turns lactic acid back to pyruvate and feeds it into citric acid cycle

Interconnections Between Molecular Breakdown and Synthesis
Cells use many kinds of organic molecules as fuel for cellular respiration
Although glucose is considered to be the primary source of sugar for respiration and fermentation,
there are actually three sources of molecules for generation of ATP
Carbohydrates (disaccharides)
Proteins (after conversion to amino acids)
Fats



Food molecules provide raw materials for biosynthesis
Many metabolic pathways are involved in biosynthesis of biological molecules
To survive, cells must be able to biosynthesize molecules that are not present in its foods
Often the cell will convert the intermediate compounds of glycolysis and the citric acid cycle to
molecules not found in food

An Overview of Photosynthesis
Each amino acid has specific properties based on its structure



The Components of Nucleic Acids

Are Dead Zones linked to photosynthesis?
Are they linked to cellular respiration? How?


Autotrophs are the producers of the biosphere
Autotrophs are living things that are able to make their own food without using organic molecules
derived from any other living thing
Autotrophs that use the energy of light to produce organic molecules are called photoautotrophs
Most plants, algae and other protists, and some prokaryotes are photoautotrophs

Capturing energy: Photosynthesis


Plants and other photosynthesizers use the energy of sunlight to make the molecule glucose using
carbon dioxide as a source of carbon. In the process, water molecules are split and oxygen is given off
as a by-product.

Autotrophs are the producers of the biosphere
The ability to photosynthesize is directly related to the structure of chloroplasts
Chloroplasts are organelles consisting of photosynthetic pigments, enzymes, and other molecules
grouped together in membranes

Photosynthesis occurs in chloroplasts in eukaryotic cells
Chloroplasts are the major sites of photosynthesis in green plants
Chlorophyll, an important light absorbing pigment in chloroplasts, is responsible for the green
color of plants
Chlorophyll plays a central role in converting solar energy to chemical energy



The Light Reactions: Converting Solar Energy to Chemical Energy
Visible radiation drives the light reactions
Sunlight contains energy called electromagnetic energy or radiation
Visible light is only a small part of the electromagnetic spectrum, the full range of
electromagnetic wavelengths
Electromagnetic energy travels in waves, and the wavelength is the distance between the crests of
two adjacent waves
Light behaves as discrete packets of energy called photons
A photon is a fixed quantity of light energy, and the shorter the wavelength, the greater the
energy



Visible radiation drives the light reactions
Pigments, molecules that absorb light, are built into the
thylakoid membrane
Plant pigments absorb some wavelengths of light and
transmit others
We see the color of the wavelengths that are
transmitted; for example, chlorophyll transmits green
Chloroplasts contain several different pigments and all
absorb light of different wavelengths
Chlorophyll a absorbs blue violet and red light and reflects green
Chlorophyll b absorbs blue and orange and reflects yellow-green
The carotenoids absorb mainly blue-green light and reflect yellow and orange

Photosystems capture solar power
Pigments in chloroplasts are responsible for
absorbing photons (capturing solar power), causing
release of electrons
The electrons jump to a higher energy level (the
excited state) where electrons are unstable
The electrons drop back down to their ground
state, and, as they do, release their excess energy

Chemiosmosis powers ATP synthesis in the light reactions


Interestingly, chemiosmosis is the mechanism that not only is involved in oxidative phosphorylation in
mitochondria but also generates ATP in chloroplasts
ATP is generated because the electron transport chain produces a concentration gradient of
hydrogen ions across a membrane

Photosynthesis moderates global warming
The greenhouse effect results from solar energy warming our planet
Gases in the atmosphere (often called greenhouse gases), including CO2, reflect heat back to Earth,
keeping the planet warm and supporting life
However, as we increase the level of greenhouse gases, Earths temperature rises above normal,
initiating problems
Increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases lead to global warming, a slow but steady rise in
Earths surface temperature
The extraordinary rise in CO2 is mostly due to the combustion of carbon-based fossil fuels
The consequences of continued rise will be melting of polar ice, changing weather pa4erns, and
spread of tropical disease
Perhaps photosynthesis can mitigate the increase in atmospheric CO2
However, there is increasing widespread deforestation, which aggravates the global warming
problem

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