Building It Up and Breaking It Down: Photosynthesis vs.

Cellular Respiration breaks down glucose and produces ATP (a form of stored energy that cells use to
carry out essential processes).
Photosynthesis and cellular respiration are two biochemical processes that
are essential to most life on Earth. Both of these processes involve multiple complex Here is the basic chemical formula for cellular respiration:
steps and many of the same molecules—oxygen (O2), carbon dioxide (CO2), water
(H2O), glucose (C6H12O6), and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). C6H12O6 + 6O2 → 6CO2 + 6H2O + (approximately) 38 ATP

What is photosynthesis? In organisms that carry out aerobic cellular respiration—that is, cellular
respiration that uses oxygen—there are four main steps involved in breaking down
Most plants are autotrophs, meaning they make their own food. glucose to produce ATP: glycolysis, pyruvate oxidation, the citric acid cycle (Krebs
Photosynthesis is the process these plants use to synthesize sugar molecules from cycle), and oxidative
sunlight, water, and carbon dioxide. During photosynthesis, plants release oxygen as phosphorylation.
a waste product.
Cellular
Here is the basic chemical formula for photosynthesis: respiration: glycolysis

6CO2 + 6H2O + Sunlight → C6H12O6 + 6O2

Photosynthesis has two main series of reactions, which can (but don’t have
to) take place simultaneously: light-dependent reactions and light-independent
reactions.

Photosynthesis: light-dependent reactions

Pyruvate Oxidation

Before the citric acid cycle can begin in earnest, the pyruvate molecules
produced during glycolysis
lose their carboxyl groups
Photosynthesis: and combine with coenzyme
light-independent A to form acetyl-CoA. The
reactions carbon molecules that are
removed during this process
are released as carbon
dioxide.

Cellular
respiration: citric acid
cycle

What is cellular respiration?

Humans, like other animals, are heterotrophs. We can’t make our own food
via photosynthesis, so we have to eat other organisms to gain glucose, which powers
the process of cellular respiration in our bodies. Cellular respiration is the process that
Cellular respiration: oxidative phosphorylation