What do anaerobic bacteria breathe?
Firstly, bacteria do not ‘breathe’ like we do. Breathing is purely a mechanical process that requires lungs/gills and air spaces and all that stuff. Let’s not get into the physiology. Aerobic bacteria on the other hand, split H2O to get O2. They generate energy by converting sugars to glucose, glucose to Pyruvic acid through Glycolysis, Pyruvic acid is cycled then, in the Kreb’s Cycle for further metabolism to give CO2. Both these are coupled to an Electron Transport Chain where the electron released in metabolism travels down an Eo gradient, reducing various complexes, before finally being accepted by Oxygen and thus completing the energy production. At various points of this ETC, the energy released by the Eo gradient, is used to convert ADP to ATP thus storing the energy to use for further work (ATP is the fundamental energy currency of the cell). ADP = Adenosine Di-Phosphate, ATP = Adenosine Triphosphate. Anaerobic bacteria, cannot use O2 as their final electron acceptor, so they r
