Which process is responsible for oxidizing glucose to make pyruvate?

Glycolysis is the process responsible for converting glucose into pyruvate through a series of enzymatic reactions. This metabolic pathway takes place in the cytoplasm of the cell and occurs regardless of the presence of oxygen, making it an anaerobic process.

During glycolysis, a six-carbon glucose molecule is broken down into two three-carbon molecules of pyruvate. This pathway involves multiple steps that include the phosphorylation of glucose, the cleavage of fructose-1,6-bisphosphate into two three-carbon sugars, and the subsequent conversion of those sugars into pyruvate. Throughout this process, energy is conserved in the form of adenosine triphosphate (ATP) and reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH), which can be used for further energy production in aerobic respiration.

In contrast, the electron transport chain is involved in the later stages of cellular respiration, where it takes the high-energy electrons from NADH and FADH2 produced during earlier pathways like glycolysis and the Krebs cycle. The Krebs cycle primarily focuses on the further oxidation of products derived from pyruvate, but it does not convert glucose directly to pyruvate. Additionally, the oxidation of pyruvate itself refers to the conversion