Patent ID: 7667097

Claim:
A pollen-preferential chimeric gene comprising the following operably linked DNA fragments: a) an isolated pollen-preferential promoter region comprising i. the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID No 7 from the nucleotide at position 16 to the nucleotide at position 1126; ii. the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID No 7 from the nucleotide at position 16 to the nucleotide at position 940; or iii. the nucleotide sequence of SEQ ID No 7 from the nucleotide at position 16 to the nucleotide at position 932; and b) a heterologous DNA region encoding an antisense RNA, a sense RNA, or a double-stranded RNA, which when produced in a plant cell, inhibits or reduces the expression of a target gene of interest in said plant cell, compared to the expression of said gene in a plant cell not comprising said DNA region, wherein said target gene is an endogenous plant gene, the product of which is essential for the normal development of microspores and/or pollen.