Thanks! That’s crazy. Evolution has resulted in some weird shit
Comment on TRUE AND REAL
flora_explora@beehaw.org 2 weeks agoThis 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.
FrostyCaveman@lemm.ee 2 weeks ago
psud@aussie.zone 2 weeks ago
That’s also (almost?) universal in human cancers
flora_explora@beehaw.org 1 week 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 1 week ago
Normal function is sugar to ATP, then the mitochondria use ATP
flora_explora@beehaw.org 1 week ago
Your first sentence is wrong (the mitochondria’s primary function is to generate ATP, which then gets transported to elsewhere where its stored energy is used). And your second sentence is confusing. With “broken ATP” you mean ADP? Or broken ATP synthesis? The point of this alternative oxidase pathway is producing some ATP, but inefficiently. And it produces also heat, because of its inefficiency (not all the energy stored in the sugars can be turned into chemically stored energy so it also produces heat energy. Think traditional light bulb). This heat is then used in the inflorescences of some aroids.