Mitochondria: Power-house of the cell
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Structure: A cell has hundreds or thousands of mitochondria. The mitochondrion (singular of mitochondria) is enclosed in an envelope of two membranes. The outer membrane is smooth but the inner membrane is convoluted, with infoldings called cristae. The membranes divide the mitochondrion into two internal compartments. The mitochondrial matrix is the compartment enclosed by the inner membrane. Many of the metabolic steps of cellular respiration occur in the matrix,where several different enzymes are concentrated. Function: The mitochondrion's raw material is the food absorbed by the cell and partly broken down in the cytoplasm. In a chemical operation, the cellular powerhouse "burns" the food to release its energy and then loads this energy onto a chemical molecule with a jawbreaker for a name: adenosine triphosphate or ATP for short.
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