Shortly after the discovery of the first extra-solar planet, many studies showed that stars hosting giant planets have significant metallicity excess when compared with the stars without known giant planets. Curiously, this strong metallicity-giant planet correlation is not found for the lowest mass planets. On the other hand studies aimed to clarify whether the planet-hosting stars are different from stars without planets in their content of individual elements (other than iron) yielded contradictory results. I will review the most recent results by discussing the importance of individual light and heavy elements for the formation and evolution of planets. I will also present the latest results about the role of metallicity on the architecture of planets.