The aim of this project was to capitalise on work completed during tenure of a CRDC/ APRA PhD Scholarship1 * Five gene products (messenger [m]RNAs) were isolated which are expressed at high levels in Si okra 1-2 cotton fibres and low levels in other parts of the cotton plant. The promoter region from one of these genes, FSltpl, was isolated and sequenced, and it was proposed to assess the ability of this and other promoters to control tissue-specific expression of a GUS reporter gene in transgenic cotton plants. The majority of this work focussed on the preparation of gene constructs using a GUS expression vector. A plasmid DNA vector was obtained from Dr Danny Llewellyn (CSIRO Division of Plant Industry, Canberra) which contains a GUS reporter gene, upstream of which is a "polycloning site" into which promoter DNA fragments could be inserted. Work in this area was hampered by the deficiency of suitable restriction sites for cloning into the GUS vector.