The effects of rare-earth elements on physiological and biochemical responses of wheat under acid rain stress were studied by pot experiments. The results showed that the stress of acid rain resulted in the decrease of chlorophyll content and the change of chlorophyll a/b values. Chlorophyll a and chlorophyll content were positively correlated with the pH value of acid rain and the peroxidase activity increased gradually with decreasing pH value. The effects led to the increased decomposition of chlorophyll and decreased content and a/b values of chlorophyll, which reulted in a speed-up blade decay and the defect of absorption and transformation of light energy and metabolism of carbohydrates. Under lower acidic conditions, the rare-earth elements can protect wheat from being damaged by acid rain and affect chlotophyll metabolism and peroxidase activity of wheat.

The effect of Ce3+ on free cytoplasmic calcium of hepatocytes and V79 cells was studied with microfluorometry. The results show that the free cytoplasmic calcium increases in low dose and increases significantly in high dose of Ce3+. These results suggest that Ce3+ might enhance the influx of Ca2+ and be toxic to hepatocytes in high dose.

Rare earth elements Ce and La were added into the near-equal atomic titanium-nickel alloy. Differential scanning calorimetry and X-ray diffraction were applied to study the effect of the Ce and La. The results show that adding a small amount of Ce into TiNi alloy can improve the phase transformation obviously, but the phases in TiNi alloy do not change. The results show that adding a small amount of Ce or La can improve the properties of titanium-nickel alloy.

The effects of lanthanum on some redox system (PMRS) properties of the plasma membrane (PM) vesicles from Casuarina equisetifdia seedlings under artificial acid rain (pH4.5) stress were studied. The results show that there are NADH oxidase and EDTA-Fe3+ reductase, and nitrate reductase in the seedling PM, and they have different responses to soaking seeds for 8h in a series of LaCl3 solution. The NADH oxidase activities and the Nitrate reductase activities can be stimulated when La3+ concentrations is in the range of 50～200mg·L-1, but their activities are inhibited or fluctuate by the higher La3+ concentrations. The EDTA-Fe3+ reductase activities can be stimulated by La3+ concentrations in the range of 50～400mg·L-1. The research also revealed that La3+ reduces the relative permeability of membranes and have the function in protecting membranes under acid rain stress by the way of inhibiting the leakage of electrolyte.

V79-8 is an abnormal cell line which does not have detectable G1 and G2 phases in its cell cycle. This cell line is derived from V79 cell line which has G1 phase but lacks G2 phase. By using an anti-sense approach, CDK4 gene expression was partially inhibited to find whether CDK4 might contribute to the lack of G1 phase in V79-8 cells. Anti-CDK4 anti-sense plasmid was constructed and used to transfect V79-8 cells. Clones of transfected cells (V79-8-asCDK4) were examined, in comparison with V79-8 cells. to determine its growth curve, cell doubling-time (GT), the level of CDK4 gene expression and the levels of expression of some other growth related genes. V79-8-asCDK4 cells showed a slower growth rate with a doubling time 2.5-h longer than that of V79-8 cells. A flow cytometry (FCM) analysis demonstrated that the 2.5h increse of the doubling time of V79-8-asCDK4 cells was mainly due to the appearance of G1 phase because its G2+ M phase was not significantly different from that of V79-8 cells. The decrease of CDK4 gene expression in V79-8-asCDK4 cells was shown by Northern-blot. Changes in the expression levels of the growth-related genes TGF-