Hey Sugar
Common over here sweetie
Let's break it down
Glycolysis, is a series of reactions, enzymatic actions, energy transactions.
Takes glucose, a molecule so sugary, breaks it down for NADH and ATP.
It's an anaerobic cytoplasmatic pathway that amazes, Organized easily into three phases
Investment, cleavage, and energy harvest
Tell me later which one you like best
Investment: activation energy's supplied
Cleavage: our six carbon sugar divides
Harvest: we get our energy yeild
So beautiful, so intricate, Keep your eyes peeled
Glycolysis! Come on sugar, Come on sugar, for the breakdown, For the breakdown.
Investment's like striking a match
That energy you put in makes the fire catch
For glycolysis investment's two ATPs which act as activation energy.
Enzymes take phosphates from ATPs
Jam 'em onto glucose rearranging it to fructose
Leaving fructose 1-6 biphosphate on the table
With two phosphates, it's highly unstable
Moving us to the second phase,
The cleaving of fructose biphosphate.
'Cause glycolysis means "splitting sugar" you can see
Cleavage yeilds two molecules with carbons three
One is glyceraldehyde 3-phosphate, G3P
It continues on our pathway broken down for energy
But the second one an enzyme will immediately
Convert into a second G3P
Glycolysis! Come on sugar, Come on sugar, for the breakdown, For the breakdown.
Phase 3: G3P gets rearranged and oxidized
By an enzymatic assembly line
That harvests energy from each G3P, one NADH and two ATPs
Double this yeild per G3P to two NADH and 4 ATPs
That's a gross yeild for every glucose in
A generous accounting of glycolysis's win
But two ATPs were invested in phase one
So you net just two you can use to jump or run
Put two in, get four out, your net gain is two
Two ATPs that you can use
If that doesn't seem like very much it's 'cause it ain't
There's tons of energy left in pyruvate
The two 3-carbon molecules we're left with at the end
And what happens to pyruvate's gonna have to depend
On the metabolic pathway where pyruvate gets sent
If it's anaerobic it'll be fermented
But in aerobic cells, pyruvate's termination
Will be the Krebs cycle and total oxidation
Glycolysis! Come on sugar, Come on sugar, for the breakdown, For the breakdown.
Glycolysis starts with investment
Of two ATPs to the glucose that we started with
The product is cleaved into two G3Ps
From which the cell harvests NADH and ATPs
This anaerobic pathway is is respiration's first phase
Billions of years old evolved in ancient days
Before O2 accumulated in the seas
Before eukaryotic cells arrived on the scene
It's everywhere, ubiquitous, in every organism
Bacteria, sequoia tree
No matter your metabolism
Happens in the cytoplasm doesn't need no organelles
You want to find glycolysis? Look in any cell!
Glycolysis! Come on sugar, Come on sugar, for the breakdown, For the breakdown!
Glycolysis! Come on sugar, Come on sugar, for the breakdown, For the breakdown!