a typical cell in the body makes about 10 million molecules of atp per second. show that the cell breaks down about 263,258 molecules of glucose per second.
Without going into too much detail about cellular respiration and all that drama, the main effect of glycolysis, the tri-carboxycilic acid cycle and oxidative phosphorylation is that for one glucose molecule, 38 molecules of ATP are produced.
It's simple to just divide 10,000,000 by 38 and you'd get roughly the 263,258 that is mentioned. The actual number would be just less than 10,000,000 ATP per 263,258 but it's close enough.
For a better understanding it might be better to just review the cellular respiration briefly. Or you can just know that 38 ATP are produced. Your choice. Too many things I've long since forgotten, to be honest.
To determine the number of glucose molecules broken down per second, we need to establish the relationship between ATP molecules and glucose molecules in cellular respiration.
In cellular respiration, one glucose molecule is converted into several ATP molecules through a series of biochemical reactions. The overall reaction can be represented as:
Glucose + Oxygen → Carbon Dioxide + Water + ATP
The specific number of ATP molecules produced from one glucose molecule varies depending on the cellular conditions, but for simplicity, let's assume a yield of 36 ATP molecules per glucose molecule.
Given that a typical cell makes about 10 million molecules of ATP per second, we can calculate the number of glucose molecules required to produce that amount of ATP.
Number of ATP molecules made per second = 10,000,000
Number of glucose molecules required = (Number of ATP molecules made per second) / (ATP produced per glucose molecule)
Number of glucose molecules required = 10,000,000 / 36
Number of glucose molecules required = 277,778.78 molecules (approximately)
Therefore, a typical cell breaks down about 277,779 glucose molecules per second to generate around 10 million molecules of ATP.