How Anaerobes Breathe

Still more primitive animals, primarily bacteria, have no haemoglobin and are therefore unable to actively extract oxygen from their surroundings. However, they are often doomed to environments where there is little or no oxygen at all. Nevertheless, these creatures are quite happy to reconcile themselves to an absence of oxygen. This led to their being named anaerobes, which means ‘one who lives without air’.

How do anaerobes manage to live without air? Not so long ago this has seemed to be a puzzle that could not be solved. Now we know that they do need oxygen all the same. Instead of extracting oxygen from the atmosphere the anaerobes simply take it from organic substances. Some bacteria even extract oxygen from inorganic substances, using nitrites and sulphites for the purpose.

Anaerobes breathe by oxidizing the products of metabolism without using additional oxygen and are quite content with the amount already present in the substance being oxidized. For, when a substance is oxidized, it makes no difference whatsoever whether oxygen is added to, or hydrogen removed from it.

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