The Fed has cut short-term interest rates six times this year in a bid to bolster growth, and it is widely expected to trim rates another quarter percentage point at its next policy meeting on Aug. 21.
The Fed's warning about the threat of economic weakness, as well as its comment that inflation remained contained, helped bolster the view that the central bank was poised to trim rates further if the need arose.
The widely expected decision by the Bank of England, Britain's central bank, to trim rates to a 40-year low combined with a stable opening on Wall Street to help reverse an early morning slide in European stocks.
Verdict: unless America's Fed cuts interest rates at its policy meeting on February 2nd (which looks unlikely), there is no rush for the ECB to trim rates.Hence, on balance, there is a good case for the ECB to cut interest rates so as to prevent economic growth and inflation falling too low.
Although Wall Street had expected the Fed to trim rates, doubts about its decision lingered up until the announcement amid conflicting views about where the economy is heading.
Notice how the trimming rate was essentially identical for LSIINFEKL and LSIINFEKLAAAL but about 100 fold smaller for LAAALSIINFEKL.
Possible synergy between the preferred residues in LSIINFEKLAAAL can potentially explain the 100-fold faster trimming rate.
To investigate this further, we measured the trimming rate of the N-terminal residue of the two peptides by ERAP1.
These results clearly highlight how the internal sequence of the peptide can greatly affect N-terminus trimming rate by ERAP1.
We demonstrate trimming rate differences of up to 100-fold for single residue replacements distal from the N-terminus and over 40,000-fold for several replacements at once.
In both cases substitution of the position 8 lysine residue by an alanine lead to a marked decrease in trimming rate by ERAP1 by 8 10 fold (Figure 9).
