Introduction to Glycolysis

The Basics

An animation shows the overall transformation of glucose in anaerobic glycolysis. It's very short and intended to be viewed in a loop.

Video for Windows Animation 714k

Quicktime Animation 1.5M

• Anaerobic glycolysis takes a six carbon sugar (glucose), splits it into two molecules of three carbon sugar (glyceradehyde) and then rearranges the atoms (to lactate).
• The rearrangement of atoms provides energy to make ATP which is the principle energy 'currency' in the cell.
• You can see that there is an overall conservation of atoms in this process. There are six carbon, six oxygen and twelve hydrogen atoms at start and finish.