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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?

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psud@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
Normal function is sugar to ATP, then the mitochondria use ATP

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- 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.
  
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  - psud@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    Yeah it’s outside my expertise so I’m bad at the detail.
    
    Normal process is the nice efficient anaerobic process that produces ATP from glucose
    
    Cancers use an all aerobic process which is less efficient but faster at producing ATP
    
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    flora_explora@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨week⁩ ago
    You still got it mixed up a bit though. There is no “normal” respiration, cells use both types of respiration all the time.
    
    current estimates [of the yield in aerobic respiration] range around 29 to 30 ATP per glucose. Aerobic metabolism is up to 15 times more efficient than anaerobic metabolism (which yields 2 molecules of ATP per 1 molecule of glucose).
    
    Anoxic regeneration of NAD+ is only an effective means of energy production during short, intense exercise in vertebrates, for a period ranging from 10 seconds to 2 minutes during a maximal effort in humans. (At lower exercise intensities it can sustain muscle activity in diving animals, such as seals, whales and other aquatic vertebrates, for very much longer periods of time.)
    
    Maybe you could link an article or a study where you’ve hear about this cancer connection? Would be curious what’s behind it.
    
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