Glycolysis and Repspiration

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Localization of Glycolysis and Respiration in the Flight Muscle of the Sarcophaga bullata Heath Thiel Cameron Pierce Abstract Glycolysis and respiration are two processes of glucose being broken down and over time, turn into carbon dioxide, energy, and water (Schultz 2006). The experiment calls for the thoraxes of the fly to create a homogenate, supernatant that is made of cytoplasm, and a pellet that is the mitochondria. Next in the experiment, seven different combinations of the mixtures were made to see where respiration and glycolysis occurred. After the seven tubes with the different combinations were set up, it was noted whether the Methylene Blue had bleached or not, and if bleached, how long did this process took. Respiration occurred in the tubes where the pellet was present, and glycolysis occurred where the supernatant was present. I imagine that respiration will occur in the tubes that contain mitochondria along with the necessary respiratory fuels. A couple of the tubes bleached then became clear again because they contained the necessary fuels for respiration and glycolysis to take place. Other tubes remained with the dark color from the Methylene blue because the suitable fuel was not all there. Introduction The main objective of glycolysis is to convert glucose into two molecules of pyruvate or pyruvic acid (Schultz 2006). Oxygen is not used in this process so that only a part of the glucose molecule is used, which gives the cell the only part of energy from glucose (Schultz 2006). There are four steps/stages in aerobic metabolism: Glycolysis, Krebs cycle, Pyruvate oxidation, and lastly the Electron transfer system (Vodopich 2008). The flies’ thoraxes were used in this experiment because of the many abundant muscles and mitochondria present here. Mitochondria are what oxidize pyruvate into CO2, H2O, and energy (Schultz

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