Chapter 7

Respiration

What is respiration?

By :
Azneezal Ar-Rashid
2009
 Respiration in animal?
• In animal physiology, respiration is the transport of
oxygen from the outside air to the cells within tissues,
and the transport of carbon dioxide in the opposite
direction. This is in contrast to the biochemical definition
of respiration, which refers to cellular respiration: the
metabolic process by which an organism obtains energy
by reacting oxygen with glucose to give water,
carbon dioxide and ATP (energy). Although physiologic
respiration is necessary to sustain cellular respiration
and thus life in animals, the processes are distinct:
cellular respiration takes place in individual cells of the
animal, while physiologic respiration concerns the
bulk flow and transport of metabolites between the
organism and the external environment.
 Unicellular organisms?
• In unicellular organisms, simple diffusion is
sufficient for gas exchange: every cell is
constantly bathed in the external environment,
with only a short distance for gases to flow
across. In contrast, complex multicellular
animals such as humans have a much greater
distance between the environment and their
innermost cells, thus, a respiratory system is
needed for effective gas exchange. The
respiratory system works in concert with a
circulatory system to carry gases to and from the
tissues.
 Stages of respiration
• In air-breathing vertebrates such as humans, respiration of oxygen
includes four stages:
• Ventilation (pertukaran udara), moving of the ambient air into and
out of the alveoli of the lungs.
• Pulmonary gas exchange, exchange of gases between the alveoli
and the pulmonary capillaries.
• Gas transport, movement of gases within the pulmonary capillaries
through the circulation to the peripheral capillaries in the organs,
and then a movement of gases back to the lungs along the same
circulatory route.
• Peripheral gas exchange, exchange of gases between the tissue
capillaries and the tissues or organs, impacting the cells composing
these and mitochondria within the cells.
• Note that ventilation and gas transport require energy to power a
mechanical pump (the heart) and the muscles of respitation, mainly
the diaphragm. In heavy breathing, energy is also required to power
additional respiatory muscles such as the intercostal muscles. The
energy requirement for ventiliation and gas transport is in contrast to
the passive diffusion taking place in the gas exchange steps.
• Respiratory behavior is correlated to the cardiovascular behavior to
control the gaseous exchange between cells and blood. Both
behaviors are intensified by exercise of the body. However,
respiratory is highly voluntary compared to cardiovascular activity
which is totally involuntary.
• Respiratory physiology is the branch of human physiology
concerned with respiration.
Aerobic respiration
 Introduction to Aerobic respiration
• Aerobic Respiration, biochemical process in living things whereby
sugars and similar substances, resulting from the digestion of food,
are broken down in the presence of oxygen to produce water,
carbon dioxide, and energy. 'Aerobic' means 'with oxygen'. The
reaction can be represented by the general chemical equation
C6H12O6 + 6O2 → 6CO2 + 6H2O + energy

• In words, sugars and oxygen react together to produce carbon

dioxide and water with the release of chemical energy. In biology,
the term “respiration” is also used for the physical process of
breathing in animals, and for the general chemical process in
animals, plants, and microbes of obtaining oxygen from the
surrounding air or water. To distinguish from these, the biochemical
processes of aerobic respiration and the closely related
anaerobic respiration are sometimes termed “cellular respiration”
(see Metabolism).
 Chemical Respiration and
Energy
• All living organisms require energy to carry out
life processes such as bodily growth, repair, and
reproduction. This energy is obtained by
chemically breaking the energy-rich bonds in
organic “fuel molecules”, usually sugars and
similar carbohydrates, which are obtained from
digested food. In cells, this energy is transferred
to molecules of adenosine diphosphate (ADP),
which are converted in the process to
adenosine triphosphate (ATP). These high-
energy ATP molecules are the main immediate
source of useable energy for cell activities.
 Two Stages of Aerobic
Respiration
• The whole process of aerobic respiration contains more
than 20 chemical steps or stages. The first series of
stages is known as glycolysis. This occurs in the jelly-like
cytoplasm of the cell, and it is anaerobic—that is, it does
not require oxygen. It releases only a small proportion of
the total energy available from a fuel molecule of glucose
or a similar sugar. (The second series of stages is known
as the citric acid cycle, tricarboxylic acid cycle, or
Krebs cycle. It is aerobic—that is, it requires oxygen. It
releases far more energy, compared to glycolysis, from
the remainder of each sugar molecule. This series of
stages happens inside the tiny organelles (parts inside
the cell) called mitochondria. The food molecule is
broken down in a step-by-step process that produces
ATP molecules at almost every stage.
 Products of Aerobic Respiration

• If one molecule of a sugar such as glucose is broken

down completely during aerobic respiration, it yields 38
molecules of high-energy ATP. Up to eight of these
come from the first, anaerobic stages (glycolysis). The
other 30 are obtained from the second, aerobic or
oxygen-requiring stages of the Krebs cycle.
• Almost all organisms, including plants, animals, fungi,
and bacteria, use aerobic respiration. It is the reason that
we and other animals breathe or respire, to obtain
oxygen from air. However, some simpler organisms and
cells can respire anaerobically when oxygen is absent. A
few organisms, such as microbes at the bottom of the
deep sea, are unable to respire aerobically at all. These
are known as obligate anaerobes.
Anaerobic respiration
 Introduction

• Anaerobic Respiration, also called anaerobiosis,

biochemical process in living things whereby sugars and
similar substances, resulting from the digestion of food,
are broken down to release energy in the absence of
oxygen. 'Anaerobic' means 'without oxygen'. It thus
differs from the allied process of aerobic respiration,
which requires the presence of oxygen. Life processes
such as growth and repair of tissues require energy, and
this is obtained by the chemical breaking of bonds in
organic molecules such as sugars and other
carbohydrates present in digested food. The chemical
energy released by this process in cells is transferred to
molecules of adenosine diphosphate (ADP), which
become converted to adenosine triphosphate (ATP),
forming the energy “bank” for the cell.
 Products of Anaerobic
Respiration
• The process of anaerobic respiration contains three main chemical steps or
stages. The starting substance or 'fuel molecule' is usually the six-carbon
sugar, glucose. The chemical process by which this is broken down is
termed glycolysis. The results are usually substances such as lactic acid
(lactate), pyruvic acid (pyruvate) or ethyl alcohol (ethanol). The reaction can
be represented by the general chemical equation:
C6H12O6 → 2C3H4O3 + 2H2 + energy
That is, sugar and oxygen react together to produce two smaller three-
carbon molecules and hydrogen, with the release of chemical energy.
• Anaerobic respiration occurs in the cytoplasm of the cell and releases only a
small proportion of the total energy contained in the fuel molecules such as
glucose sugar, yielding up to 8 molecules of the high-energy ATP. If oxygen
is available, the products of glycolysis can be used further in the oxygen-
requiring breakdown process of the citric acid or Krebs cycle, to yield up to
another 30 molecules of high-energy ATP. In this way, glycolysis becomes
the first stage of aerobic respiration.
 Variations of Anaerobic
Respiration
• Yeasts, which are tiny fungi, can break down the pyruvic acid from
glycolysis into ethyl alcohol (ethanol) and carbon dioxide. This process is
called alcoholic fermentation. The alcohol is used in the brewing industry,
and also in baking, where the carbon dioxide gas released by fermentation
makes bread rise. Anaerobic respiration is far less efficient than aerobic
respiration, but many organisms can use it when necessary, usually when
oxygen is lacking. These are called facultative anaerobes and include
yeasts and other fungi, bacteria, parts of plants such germinating seeds and
waterlogged roots, certain worms and similar animals found in stagnant
water or at the bottom of the sea, and mammalian muscle cells.
• A few bacteria and similar microbes are obligate anaerobes. They cannot
use oxygen at all—indeed oxygen may be highly poisonous to them. In
animal and human muscle cells that are working so hard that their blood
circulation cannot bring in enough oxygen, aerobic respiration cannot occur.
Anaerobic respiration then produces pyruvic acid that is converted to lactic
acid. This situation is called oxygen debt, and the accumulating lactic acid
may cause cramps. As the physical activity eases off and the oxygen level
begins to rise again, the oxygen is used to break down the lactic acid
aerobically.