The Converter, Not the Generator

You'll learnwhere each stage of respiration happens, and how one glucose becomes ATP and heat.

A mitochondrion has no energy of its own. Every joule it hands to ATP arrived inside a glucose molecule that a plant packed with sunlight, and the cell only moves it, losing most of it as heat on the way. Watch one glucose go through all three stages — split in the cytosol, stripped to CO₂ in the matrix, and cashed at the inner membrane, where a proton gradient spins a motor. Twelve short steps; press Next for each one.

AP BIOLOGY · 12 STEPS · 6 QUICK CHECKS · CYTOSOL → MATRIX → INNER MEMBRANE · O₂ = FINAL ELECTRON ACCEPTOR · ~30–32 ATP · v6

cytosol · matrix · inner membrane · glucose in, ATP and heat out

Before you start

What you're looking at

One cell with a mitochondrion inside it, tagged with three addresses: glycolysis in the cytosol, Krebs in the matrix, the chain on the inner membrane.

The question

Where does each stage of respiration happen, and how much ATP does one glucose actually yield?

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