To shed some light on the advantages, Johnnie outlined the approach being taken at Mississippi State University. The lesson from all this is that more progress can be made by the two groups working together than apart. The basis of collaborative projects is that the association is mutually beneficial, so share the glory and believe that you really do need each other to solve the very real problems facing cotton improvement. Louisiana Dr. M. Altaf Khan presented some of the goals of the program at Louisiana State University. Testing of DNA extracted from leaf tissue indicated that the gene for GhSEM-1 was structurally present but not expressed.
Efforts are underway to develop an antibody based marker system.
The four embryo stages also exhibited unique protein expression profiles and these profiles further differed between regenerable and recalcitrant cotton genotypes. A further characterization of these proteins is to be undertaken. Questioned as to whether a diverse group of lines have been screened with GhSEM-1, Dr. No work has been done on somaclonal variants either. North Carolina Dr. Daryl Bowman reported on some of the results from a Cotton Breeder Survey he has been conducting.