9,946 research outputs found
Is a consumer loan a catalyst for confidence?
In the context of the global economic downturn, the approach
guided by consumer loans (CL) to boost consumer confidence is a
feasible way to promote the internal circulation of the Chinese
economy. Therefore, we use a time-varying rolling-window
approach to identify how CL affects the consumer confidence index
(CCI). We find that CL can be seen as vital support for promoting
confidence because it can ease liquidity constraints and improve
consumption levels. The empirical outcome is supported by the
Rational Expectations Perpetual Income Hypothesis (RE-PIH),
emphasizing that increasing CL can boost consumer confidence.
Conversely, CCI has both positive and negative effects on CL. The
positive effects suggest that consumers’ optimistic confidence leads
them to increase borrowing, which in turn creates a heavier debt
burden. This statement cannot be supported by the negative effect
due to consumers’ blind self-confidence will cause cognitive bias,
which is not conducive to the loan market development. Against
the backdrop of increased global uncertainty due to the COVID-19
pandemic and the government’s continuous adjustment of loan
policies, consumers can effectively optimise their consumption decision-
making through borrowing. The policymaker can maintain
loan stability by effectively promoting consumer confidence and
raising the consumption level of the whole society
miRNA-124 in Immune System and Immune Disorders
In recent years, miR-124 has emerged as a critical modulator of immunity and inflammation. Here, we summarize studies on the function and mechanism of miR-124 in the immune system and immunity-related diseases. They indicated that miR-124 exerts a crucial role in the development of immune system, regulation of immune responses, and inflammatory disorders. It is evident that miR-124 may serve as an informative diagnostic biomarker and therapeutic target in the future
Expressing a cytosolic pyruvate dehydrogenase complex to increase free fatty acid production in Saccharomyces cerevisiae
Background: Saccharomyces cerevisiae is being exploited as a cell factory to produce fatty acids and their derivatives as biofuels. Previous studies found that both precursor supply and fatty acid metabolism deregulation are essential for enhanced fatty acid synthesis. A bacterial pyruvate dehydrogenase (PDH) complex expressed in the yeast cytosol was reported to enable production of cytosolic acetyl-CoA with lower energy cost and no toxic intermediate. Results: Overexpression of the PDH complex significantly increased cell growth, ethanol consumption and reduced glycerol accumulation. Furthermore, to optimize the redox imbalance in production of fatty acids from glucose, two endogenous NAD+-dependent glycerol-3-phosphate dehydrogenases were deleted, and a heterologous NADP+-dependent glyceraldehyde-3-phosphate dehydrogenase was introduced. The best fatty acid producing strain PDH7 with engineering of precursor and co-factor metabolism could produce 840.5\ua0mg/L free fatty acids (FFAs) in shake flask, which was 83.2% higher than the control strain YJZ08. Profile analysis of free fatty acid suggested the cytosolic PDH complex mainly resulted in the increases of unsaturated fatty acids (C16:1 and C18:1). Conclusions: We demonstrated that cytosolic PDH pathway enabled more efficient acetyl-CoA provision with the lower ATP cost, and improved FFA production. Together with engineering of the redox factor rebalance, the cytosolic PDH pathway could achieve high level of FFA production at similar levels of other best acetyl-CoA producing pathways
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