Transgenic plants in monocotyledons

As mentioned earlier the production of transgenic plants in monocotyledons was not so successful due to two reasons:

a) the Ti plasmids could not be used to transform monocots because monocots are not ordinarily infected by Agrobacterium, which is generally used to transform dicots. And
b) the regeneration of plants from protoplasts or single cells which is generally used for transformation was not possible.

These limitations have been solved by using alternative and new methods of DNA uptake and regeneration protocols for crops like rice and maize. In rice (both in japonica and indica varieties, there have been successful production of transgenic plants. In Maize, a reporter gene for neomycin phosphotransferase (NPT II) associated with 35S promoter region of the cauliflower mosaic virus (CMV) was used for production of transgenic plants.