Dec. 3, 2013. In an article titled, “Comparison between Agrobacterium-mediated and Direct Gene Transfer Using the Gene Gun,” published in  the November issue of Plant Cell Reports (vol.
940 (3-16), Caixia Gao and Klaus K. Nielsen have described efficient protocols for Agrobacterium-mediated transformation for grasses. Like dicotyledons they have also developed microparticle bombardment technique for grasses, namely, Festuca arundinacea Schreb,  for direct gene transfer using the gene gun (microparticle– bombardment). The Agrobacterium method has been successfully practiced in dicots for many years, but only recently efficient
protocols have been developed for grasses. Microparticle bombardment has evolved as a method delivering exogenous
nucleic acids into plant genome and is a commonly employed technique in plant science. Here these two authors have compared the two systems for transformation efficiency, transgene integration, and transgene expression to transform tall fescue (Festuca arundinacea Schreb.). The tall fescue transformation protocols led to the production of large numbers of fertile, independent transgenic lines.