How to remember the Krebs cycle in order

The Krebs cycle, or citric acid cycle, goes citrate, isocitrate, alpha-ketoglutarate, succinyl-CoA, succinate, fumarate, malate and oxaloacetate. Oxaloacetate then joins the next acetyl-CoA to make citrate again. Put one on each part of your body from your feet up.

Try it: all eight on your body

Eight words, one at a time, each on a part of your body: feet, knees, thighs, hips, stomach, chest, shoulders, neck. For each, type what the word does to that part, in a few words; the first two come with a scene to start you off. Up to 15 seconds a word. Then look away for 15 seconds, and walk up your body from your feet to get them back.

Where does the order slip?

Succinyl-CoA and succinate sit next to each other and sound alike: the CoA comes off as you go up. Some textbooks put cis-aconitate between citrate and isocitrate. Oxaloacetate, on your neck, closes the loop back to citrate on your feet.

How do you keep it?

Walk up your body again tomorrow and a few days later, and say each item before you look. Recalling something before you look at it again is one of the best-supported ways to learn. If an item doesn’t come back, give it a new scene on the same part of your body.

In a 2022 study, ten parts of the body, typed from feet to head, worked as well as a classical memory palace for recalling a list in order. There’s more in how to memorize a list in order and the body method.

Keep this list with Without Notes

After the free first lesson, paste this list into Without Notes. It puts the items on your places in order, you write each scene, and it checks you at 1, 7 and 30 days, unaided.