Cellular Respiration

Demonstration of Cellular Respiration of a celery cell in vivo.

Purpose

Cellular respiration is a metabolic process consisting of a series of oxidation reactions in which oxygen is utilized and therefore is called an aerobic reaction. The process of cellular respiration takes place in the mitochondria, located in the cell of an organism and which converts biochemical energy from nutrients into adenosine triphosphate (ATP), and then releases waste products. The mitochondria is surrounded by two membranes, the inner membrane and outer membrane. The inner membrane is convoluted into folds known as cristae, where most of the cellular energy is produced. The mitochondria can be seen under the microscope by their constant motion, turning and twisting

Afterwards two drops of sucrose were added into one of the slides, and in the other slide two drops of water were added. Then, the slides were covered by a coverslip and placed it into different microscopes for further examination. The first step was to identify and focus the cell under the lense 100x; there the cell wall, nucleus, chloroplasts, and Rod Shaped (mitochondria) were divised. The mitochondria were moving into the cytoplasm and were much smaller than the chloroplasts. Then, under the 400x lense the previously observed structures appeared more clear; under this precision it was important to look for the mitochondria. Once the mitochondria was devised under the microscope that contained glucose, two drops of Janus Green B were placed in one side of the coverslip and at the other end filter paper was placed just beneath the coverslip, in order to draw the stain across the tissue. At the same time, the clock was started in order to know how long the color disappears.The same process of staining was done in the slide that contained the drops of water and at the end both results were

When the vital stain is added into the slide containing water, the process of oxidation will take longer. The vital stain into the cell is colored because it is an oxidizing agent and when it is added into the slide that contains sucrose, it will act as an electron acceptor and therefore becomes reduced and colorless on a faster rate. This process occurs more slowly in the cell that contains water because there is not a great amount of glucose present to be oxidized; therefore, the process of fading the color takes longer. After the experiment is done, it can be stated that the previously raised hypothesis is supported by the results obtained and at the same time the prediction made is supported when the Janus Green stain turned from blue to colorless at a faster rate when glucose was present than the process with