Abstract
Cellular respiration is one of the most fundamental processes of life. Most of the energy available to animals is generated by it. In the so-called respiratory chain, four large membrane protein complexes act together to oxidize substrates and finally to reduce oxygen. In the respiratory chains of mitochondria and in many bacteria, either NADH or succinate, both formed preferentially in the citric acid cycle, are oxidized by complex I or complex II, respectively, and ubiquinol is generated. Ubiquinol is oxidized by complex III, also known as the cytochrome bc 1 complex, and the electrons are transferred to cytochrome c. Cytochrome c is oxidized by complex IV, the cytochrome c oxidase (see Fig. 1). The electrons of cytochrome c are used to reduce molecular oxygen, and water is formed. Complexes I, III, and IV are able to transport (or pump) protons across the membrane in addition to those protons that are released from ubiquinol on the periplasmic side of the bacterial membrane (or in the intermembrane space of mitochondria) by complex III, or consumed on the cytoplasmic (or matrix) side in complex IV upon water formation. The electrochemical potential difference of protons is used to drive ATP synthesis by the H+-translocating ATPase. In some sense, the respiratory chain catalyzes the detonating gas reaction, but it has to make certain that energy is stored in the electrochemical proton gradient and that no dangerous side products are formed, especially in the reaction catalyzed by the cytochrome c oxidase. Generation of superoxides or peroxides would be dangerous.
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Michel, H., Iwata, S., Ostermeier, C. (1999). Crystallization, Structure, and Possible Mechanism of Action of Cytochrome c Oxidase from the Soil Bacterium Paracoccus denitrificans . In: Papa, S., Guerrieri, F., Tager, J.M. (eds) Frontiers of Cellular Bioenergetics. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4843-0_5
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-4843-0_5
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