Promoters are genetic elements that facilitate the transcription of a gene and they have been found in front of non-coding RNA (ncRNA) genes in different organ-isms, e.g. the model plant Arabidopsis thaliana. A similar element, DUSE, has been found in front of ncRNAs in the social amoeba Dictyostelium discoideum and a part of this project has been to analyze the function of this putative promoter element through cloning and expression studies. A construct to analyze the func-tion of DUSE was successfully designed and introduced into D. discoideum but full expression studies were not finished because of shortage of time.