In aerobic cellular respiration, which process produces the greatest amount of ATP per glucose molecule in eukaryotic cells?
A
Substrate-level phosphorylation during the citric acid (TCA) cycle
B
Pyruvate oxidation (conversion of pyruvate to acetyl-CoA)
C
Oxidative phosphorylation via the electron transport chain and ATP synthase
D
Substrate-level phosphorylation during glycolysis
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검증된 단계별 안내
1
Step 1: Understand the overall process of aerobic cellular respiration, which includes glycolysis, pyruvate oxidation, the citric acid (TCA) cycle, and oxidative phosphorylation via the electron transport chain and ATP synthase.
Step 2: Identify the ATP yield from substrate-level phosphorylation during glycolysis and the TCA cycle, noting that these steps produce a relatively small, fixed number of ATP molecules per glucose.
Step 3: Recognize that pyruvate oxidation itself does not directly produce ATP but generates important electron carriers (NADH) that feed into the electron transport chain.
Step 4: Focus on oxidative phosphorylation, where NADH and FADH2 donate electrons to the electron transport chain, creating a proton gradient across the inner mitochondrial membrane.
Step 5: Understand that ATP synthase uses this proton gradient to drive the synthesis of a large amount of ATP, making oxidative phosphorylation the process that produces the greatest amount of ATP per glucose molecule in eukaryotic cells.