The heat goes on: Simplifying the identification of energy hardship.

Energy hardship affects over 6% of households in New Zealand, defined as the inability to afford and obtain energy services. In late 2021, the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment proposed 26 indicators to identify energy hardship. However, this study aimed to explore the leading causes and consequences of energy hardship in the following year, including relevant variables not included in the proposed indicators.

5S clavam biosynthetic genes are located in both the clavam and paralog gene clusters in Streptomyces clavuligerus.

The Streptomyces clavuligerus clavam gene cluster was examined to identify genes specifically involved in 5S clavam biosynthesis. A reduction/loss of 5S clavam production was seen in cvm2 and cvm5 gene mutants, and a clavam metabolite not previously observed, 2-carboxymethylideneclavam, accumulated in the cvm5 mutant. Disruption of additional genes from the region of the clavam cluster did not have any effect on 5S clavam production.

Streptomyces clavuligerus has a second copy of the proclavaminate amidinohydrolase gene.

Past genetic studies have indicated that the genes encoding early enzymes of clavulanic acid biosynthesis may be duplicated in Streptomyces clavuligerus. We observed cross-hybridizing bands upon Southern analyses of proclavaminate amidinohydrolase (pah)-defective mutant strains of S. clavuligerus screened with a pah-specific probe.

ORF6 from the clavulanic acid gene cluster of Streptomyces clavuligerus has ornithine acetyltransferase activity.

The clinically used beta-lactamase inhibitor clavulanic acid is produced by fermentation of Streptomyces clavuligerus. The orf6 gene of the clavulanic acid biosynthetic gene cluster in S. clavuligerus encodes a protein that shows sequence homology to ornithine acetyltransferase (OAT), the fifth enzyme of the arginine biosynthetic pathway.