Question

What happens during fermentation in microbes?

Answer 1

Fermentation:

1. It is an anaerobic pathway by which glucose is broken down.
2. In the microbes, during fermentation, such as yeast pyruvate (formed in the process of glycolysis) does not advance to the electron transport chain.
3. Rather, they generally accept hydrogen from NADH (a reduced form of NAD which is produced during glycolysis) leading to the production of carbon dioxide, ethanol, and oxidized NAD.
4. Regeneration of NAD is also vital to the cell as there is only a restricted quantity of NAD in cells.
5. The process makes sure that the NAD gets recycled into the glycolysis pathway for it to be reduced once more for the formation of NADH and produce ATP.
6. In absence of this recycling step, glycolysis ceases as the cell is short of NAD.