You grow some yeast under aerobic conditions and some under

You grow some yeast under aerobic conditions and some under anaerobic conditions. Each batch has the same amount of glucose available and except for oxygen levels all other culture conditions are the same. Which batch will survive longer? Justify your answer by describing the pathways each batch uses to synthesize ATP.

Solution

Aerobic yeasts readily use glucose to oxidize into ATP or NADPH. The oxidation process fast observes in presence of oxygen because oxygen works as electron acceptor and oxidizing agent. Aerobic process use glycolysis, and Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation to produce ATP.

Anaerobic respiration is a process under stress condition. That is slow and produce little amount of energy molecules. Anaerobic glycolysis produces two ATP molecules while aerobic produces 32 molecules of ATP. Anaerobic uses ATP production through lactic acid formation from glucose molecule.

On the behalf of above explanations we can say yeast under aerobic condition would survive more than yeast under anaerobic condition, for a given glucose concentration.