Mechanism of lanthanum effect on chlorophyll of spinach

The mechanism of La3+ effect on chlorophyll (chl) of spinach in solution culture has been studied. The results show that La3+ can obviously promote growth, increase chlorophyll contents and photosynthetic rate of spinach. La3+ may substitute Mg2+ for chlorophyll formation of spinach when there is no Mg2+ in solution. La3+ improves significantly PSII formation and enhances electron transport rate of PSII. By ICP-MS and atom absorption spectroscopy methods, it has been revealed that rare earth elements (REEs) can enter chloroplasts and increase Mg2+-chl contents; and REEs bind to chlorophyll and also form REE-chl. REE-chl is about 72% in total chlorophyll with La3+ treatment and without Mg2+ in solution. By UV-Vis, FT-IR and extended X-ray absorption fine structure spectroscopy (EXAFS) methods, it has been found that La3+ coordinates with nitrogen of porphyrin rings with the average La-N bond length of 0.253 nm.