This got me interested too and apparently aroids as a family are specialized on doing this.
In lieu of their normal metabolic pathway, which ends in the production of ATP, the mitochondria switch over to a pathway called the “Alternative Oxidase Metabolic Pathway.” When this happens, the mitochondria start burning sugars using oxygen as a fuel source. This form of respiration produces heat.
Isn’t this just the normal functions of mitochondria in organisms irrespective of kingdom? They burn sugars (in aerobic respiration using oxygen) to produce ATP. ATP can then be used elsewhere in the body as an energy reserve. Animals do it and plants do it. The difference here might rather be that they don’t convert the sugars into ATP but rather use the thermic energy of the reaction to produce heat instead of ATP?
flora_explora@beehaw.org 4 months ago
This got me interested too and apparently aroids as a family are specialized on doing this.
psud@aussie.zone 4 months ago
That’s also (almost?) universal in human cancers
flora_explora@beehaw.org 4 months ago
Isn’t this just the normal functions of mitochondria in organisms irrespective of kingdom? They burn sugars (in aerobic respiration using oxygen) to produce ATP. ATP can then be used elsewhere in the body as an energy reserve. Animals do it and plants do it. The difference here might rather be that they don’t convert the sugars into ATP but rather use the thermic energy of the reaction to produce heat instead of ATP?
psud@aussie.zone 4 months ago
Normal function is sugar to ATP, then the mitochondria use ATP
FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee 4 months ago
Thanks! That’s crazy. Evolution has resulted in some weird shit