system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
When an organism (i.e. an animal or a human) is killed, how long does it usually take for the individual cells to die? What about the other symbiotic microbes/organisms?
gpt
This really depends on the sensitivity of the tissue. The cause of individual cell death is a lack of oxygen, which in turn means no ATP (energy), so the cell cannot maintain its integrity. Some tissues (brain, heart) are very metabolically active, and thus very sensitive to hypoxia/anoxia (decreased levels of oxygen, or no oxygen at all).

Basically, the brain and heart start to die off within a few (3-5) minutes of somatic death (death of the organism). Tissues like the kidneys and liver survive longer; about an hour, while bones, tendons and other fibrous tissues may survive much longer than that, since they barely have any metabolism.