Cellular respiration involves a series of metabolic pathways that harvest energy from nutrients like glucose to produce ATP. It occurs in four stages: glycolysis, pyruvate oxidation, the Krebs cycle, and the electron transport chain. During these stages, electrons are transferred between electron carriers like NADH and FADH2, which release energy to establish a proton gradient across a membrane. ATP synthase uses this proton gradient to phosphorylate ADP and produce ATP.