mitochondria as found in the aerobic eukaryotes, but
instead possesses a highly divergent mitochondrionrelated
organelle, named mitosomes [23]. E. histolytica
mitosomes lack features of aerobic energy metabolism
including the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle and oxidative
phosphorylation, and energy generation is primarily
dependent on substrate level phosphorylation in
glycolysis and fermentation, which occur in the cytosol
[24]. In E. histolytica, pyruvate is converted to acetyl-CoA
by pyruvate:ferredoxin oxidoreductase (PFOR), and
acetyl-CoA is either converted to acetate with a concomitant
ATP generation or reduced to ethanol with regeneration
of NAD [25]. Glycolysis is the only pathway in E.
histolytica for which kinetic parameters of enzymes have
been comprehensively investigated [26–28]. Recently
Pineda et al. reported that under aerobic conditions the
bifunctional aldehyde–alcohol dehydrogenase exerts significant
flux control on ethanol and acetate production in
E. histolytica [2