FERMENTATION

Fermentation

Fermentation is a metabolic process that converts sugar to acids, gases and/or alcohol. It occurs in yeast and bacteria, but also in oxygen-starved muscle cells . Fermentation takes place in the absence of oxygen, when the electron transport chain is unusable. It is used by the cell not to generate energy directly, but to recycle NADH into NAD+ so that glycolysis can continue, as long as glucose is present. The energy generated by the glycolysis-fermentation pathway, a form of substrate-level phosphorylation, is small compared with that of oxidative phosphorylation. Fermentation consumes NADH, which in aerobic conditions might have been used to generate ...

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fermentation

Noun

  1. Any of many anaerobic biochemical reactions in which an enzyme (or several enzymes produced by a microorganism) catalyses the conversion of one substance into another; especially the conversion (using yeast) of sugars to alcohol or acetic acid with the evolution of carbon dioxide
  2. A state of agitation or excitement; a ferment


The above text is a snippet from Wiktionary: fermentation
and as such is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

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