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A2 Respiration Question...

Hello

Just going over my revision for Exam and looking at respiration anaerobically...
My OCR textbook says that during anaerobic respiration in Yeast, Pyruvate is decarboxylated using pyruvate decarboxylase enzyme which is not present in animals. I'm assuming we're animals... But I don't think this is right because during the link reaction on aerobic respiration, pyruvate has its carboxyl group removed using a pyruvate decarboxylase enzyme.
Whats going on? :s-smilie:
We do possess the decarboxylase enzyme then, right? But I don't think we should as then we would also produce ethanol anaerobically rather than lactate??????
Thanks.
Reply 1
Got it - it's not that we don't possess pyruvate carboxylase, it's that we don't possess the specific type of pyruvate carboxylase that's used in the anaerobic respiration of yeast to make ethanol. There must be different types of the enzyme...

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