How does fatty acid oxidation produces energy? I would like to have a little summary of it.
Fatty Acid Oxidation produces energy
- Thread starter melmu001
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I'm going to explain this super informally because I haven't taken biochem in 1.5 years but basically when a fatty acid gets oxidized, it gets broken down in the mitochondria into acetyl CoA. Because a fatty acid tail has many carbons (10+), multiple molecules of acetyl CoA will be made. The newly formed acetyl coa will get shunted into the Krebs cycle and eventually the electrons from the Krebs cycle will enter the ETC
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When a saturated fatty acid gets oxidized ( beta oxidation) acetyl Coa, NADH and FADH2 are produced, each time 2 carbons are taken off. Acetyl coa goes into the TCA cycle to produce 3 NADH molecules and 1 FADH2 molecule. All the NADH and FADH2 molecules then go to the ETC where they donate their electrons to make ATP.
For unsaturated fatty acid, for every double bond, you do not produce FADH2, however, NADH is always produced. That is why unsaturated fatty acids give less ATP than saturated.
Hope this helps.
