The Significance of Foreign Direct Investment Registered Projects and Employment Creation in the Sectors of Ghana’s Economy

The flow of foreign direct investment (FDI) into the Ghanaian economy has contributed significantly to the various sectors. This study seeks to assess the impact of registered investment (FDI and domestic) projects on employment generation in the agriculture, building & construction, manufacturing, and service sectors. The data for this study was obtained from the Ghana Investment Promotion Centre (GIPC) for the period 2001 to 2018. The Kwiatkowski-Phillips-Schmidt-Shin (KPSS) test showed a unit root existence in the time series. The regression results show no significant impact of registered investment projects on the agriculture and manufacturing sectors at a 5% significance level. Our findings also indicated that employment creation through registered investment projects has no effect on the manufacturing industry. The outcome also revealed that the service sector benefits more from FDI than the other sectors. It is recommended that the government boost these non-performing sectors with incentives to attract more investors

Dose-dependent effects of dietary xylooligosaccharides supplementation on microbiota, fermentation and metabolism in healthy adult cats

In order to investigate the effect and appropriate dose of prebiotics, this study evaluated the effect of two levels of xylooligosaccharides (XOS) in cats. Twenty-four healthy adult cats were divided into three groups: no-XOS control diet with 1% cellulose; low XOS supplementation (LXOS) with 0.04% XOS and 0.96% cellulose; and high XOS supplementation (HXOS) with 0.40% XOS and 0.60% cellulose. Both XOS groups increased blood 3-hydroxybutyryl carnitine levels and decreased hexadecanedioyl carnitine levels. Both XOS treatments displayed an increased bacterial abundance of Blautia, Clostridium XI, and Collinsella and a decreased abundance of Megasphaera and Bifidobacterium. LXOS groups increased fecal pH and bacterial abundance of Streptococcus and Lactobacillus, decreased blood glutaryl carnitine concentration, and Catenibacterium abundance. HXOS group showed a more distinct microbiome profile and higher species richness, and an increased bacterial abundance of Subdoligranulum, Ruminococcaceae genus (unassigned genus), Erysipelotrichaceae genus, and Lachnospiraceae. Correlations between bacterial abundances and blood and fecal parameters were also observed. In conclusion, XOS could benefit feline gut health by altering microbiota; its effects dependant on the dose. The higher-dose XOS increased bacterial populations that possibly promoted intestinal fermentation, while the lower dose altered populations of carbohydrate-metabolic microbiota and possibly modulated host metabolism. Low-dose prebiotics may become a trend in future studie

A Rationally Engineered Capsid Variant of AAV9 for Systemic CNS-Directed and Peripheral Tissue-Detargeted Gene Delivery in Neonates

Adeno-associated virus (AAV) has provided the gene therapy field with the most powerful in vivo gene delivery vector to realize safe, efficacious, and sustainable therapeutic gene expression. Because many clinically relevant properties of AAV-based vectors are governed by the capsid, much research effort has been devoted to the development of AAV capsids for desired features. Here, we combine AAV capsid discovery from nature and rational engineering to report an AAV9 capsid variant, designated as AAV9.HR, which retains AAV9’s capability to traverse the blood-brain barrier and transduce neurons. This variant shows reduced transduction in peripheral tissues when delivered through intravascular (IV) injection into neonatal mice. Therefore, when IV AAV delivery is used to treat CNS diseases, AAV9.HR has the advantage of mitigating potential off-target effects in peripheral tissues compared to AAV9. We also demonstrate that AAV9.HR is suitable for peripheral tissue-detargeted CNS-directed gene therapy in a mouse model of a fatal pediatric leukodystrophy. In light of recent success with profiling diversified natural AAV capsid repertoires and the understanding of AAV capsid sequence-structure-function relationship, such a combinatory approach to AAV capsid development is expected to further improve vector targeting and expand the vector toolbox for therapeutic gene delivery. Keywords: AAV capsid, adeno-associated virus, CNS disease, gene therapy, tissue detargetin