What is a pyruvate and where does it come from?

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pyruvate or pyruvic acid is 3 carbons and is formed as an end product of glycolysis. you start off with 6-carbon glucose and then break it down to 2 molecules of pyruvate which each have 3 carbons. Pyruvate will be converted to lactic acid, ethy alcohol if it goes through fermentation however if there is oxygen then pyruvate will go through aerboic resp. and form acetyl Co-A

When your cells break down food to release energy, it does it by going through many steps (this makes it easier to capture and use the energy, just like your car doesn't explode all the gas in the gas tank at once). Each step in the breakdown process converts the molecules from one form to another, just like to eat an orange, you go from "orange" to "peeled orange" to "orange slice" to "bite of orange" as you remove parts of the orange and do things to it. Glucose, a molecule with 6 carbons (and 12 H & 6 O) is taken apart ultimately into a pair of 3 carbon molecules (each with 4 H & 3 Oxygens) called Pyruvate. This happens during the process called glycolysis, the first major step in a cell's breakdown of sugar for energy.So, where does the pyruvate come from? When a cell takes in glucose, the cell splits it into pyruvate molecules, releasing a bit of energy. The pyruvate will then go to the mitochondria if there's O2, or be changed into lactic acid or alcohol if there's no O2