Growth Light Intensity Affects Photosynthetic Carbon Metabolism in Spinach

Growth of plants at different light intensities causes the appearance of large differences in the leaf physiology, particularly at the level of photosynthetic metabolism. Leaves grown at low light have lower light and CO2 saturated photosynthesis, a lower amount of ribulose-1, 5-bisphosphate carboxylase (Rubisco), a reduced capacity of electron transport, a lower Mg2+-dependent ATPase activity than leaves grown at high light intensity (1). Despite a large number of studies carried out on the effect of growth light intensity on the modification of leaf photosynthesis, very little effort has been spent to study the effect of growth light intensity, on the control of photosynthetic end product synthesis and on carbohydrate partitioning.