The plants, in which a functional foreign gene has been incorporated by any biotechnological methods that generally is not present in plant, are called transgenic plants. When plant cell are transformed by any of the transformation methods it is necessary to isolate the transformed cells/tissue. There are certain selectable marker genes present in vectors that facilitate the selection process. In transformed cells the selectable marker genes are introduced through vector.

There is a number of marker genes which are commonly described as reporter genes screenable genes. Some of the reporter genes which are most commonly used in plant transformation are : cat, gus, lux, nptII., etc.