Problem
• An experiment with Staphylococcus aureus which is a facultative anaerobe. Decide to grow it in two flasks, flask X which you expose to oxygen and flask Y which is put in an environment with no oxygen. Both flasks started with the same amount of broth and nutrients and both were grown for 24 hours. Which flask would have a greater number of cells at the end of 24 hours? Fully explain your reasoning.
• NAD is in limited supply in a cell. Through metabolic processes like glycolysis, the doorway step, and the Kreb's Cycle, it is converted to NADH. How does NAD differ from NADH? Where does an aerobe use NAD? Where does an anaerobe use NAD?
• Fermentation pathways do not produce any ATP themselves. If we took away an obligate anaerobes's ability to ferment, could it produce enough ATP to live? Explain your reasoning.
• An obligate aerobe needs oxygen in order to produce ATP. If it was place in an oxygen deficient environment, the ETC would stop. Explain why the lack of oxygen would cause the ETC to stop and why glycolysis would halt as well leaving the aerobe with no options to produce ATP.
• ATP is used for cell work. Give two examples of cell work. Given 1 glucose molecule, how many net ATP can an obligate aerobe make? Given 1 glucose molecule, how many net ATP can an obligate anaerobe make?
• Prokaryotes lack mitochondria. Explain how they use their cell membrane to run the ETC.