A bidirectional promoter can be defined operationally as a short segment of DNA that regulates divergent transcription. In an attempt to investigate whether the intergenic region between the oleosin and a second open reading frame (ORFII) in Brassica napus (L.) is a divergent promoter, and also to characterize the ORFII, cDNA clones homologous to ORFII were isolated from a leaf cDNA library. A representative cDNA (clone D) of one of the two classes identified was identical, in DNA sequence, to the genomic ORFII. The second representative cDNA (clone O) was 97% identical at the nucleotide level to the genomic ORFII. The predicted amino acid sequence of the cDNA clones each exhibit homology with the peptide methionine sulphoxide reductase (PMSR) of Escherichia coli. The gene structure of ORFII was elucidated and the relative positions of the oleosin, ORFII, and the intergenic promoter region were determined. This confirms that the B. napus oleosin-ORFII intergenic region has divergent promoter activity. Consequently this is the first such plant nuclear divergent promoter identified. RFLP-mapping results showed that all four ORFII genes are linked to four of the six copies of the oleosin genes. This suggested that the bidirectional promoter locus is conserved within the B. napus genome. The ORFII gene product is targeted to the chloroplast, which is consistent with previous data indicating the presence of PMSR activity in the chloroplast. The over-expressed recombinant fusion protein (minus the transitpeptide) showed the capability to reduce peptide methionine sulphoxide residues in vitro, indicating PMSR activity. This study demonstrates that ORFII is transcribed and encodes a plant PMSR, and is the first example of the isolation of a eukaryotic PMSR gene.