Schematic representation of the cellular bioenergetic pathways that contribute to ATP biosynthesis. In glycolysis, a sequence of reactions sees glucose converted into pyruvate, resulting in the generation of ATP (yellow). Pyruvate passes into the mitochondria, where it is converted into Acetyl-CoA before feeding into the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle. A further sequence of reactions within this cycle leads to the activation of electron carrier molecules, which deliver electrons to the electron transport chain, resulting in ATP generation via oxidative phosphorylation. Fatty acids and amino acids are oxidized and also feed into the TCA cycle, thus also generating ATP. 2-deoxy-D-glucose (2DG, red) inhibits hexokinase (HK, green), therefore inhibiting glycolysis. Oligomycin A (OMA, blue) inhibits ATP synthase (ATPS, green), therefore inhibiting oxidative phosphorylation. Created in BioRender. Gregorova, M. (2025) https://biorender.com/d96z947.