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Molecular markers are useful for a variety of purposes relevant to crop improvement. The most important of these uses is the indirect markerassisted selection (MAS) exercised during plant breeding. For this purpose, molecular markers need to be amenable to automation and high throughput approaches. However, the gel-based assays that are needed for most molecular markers are time consuming and expensive, limiting their utility. The new generation molecular markers, called single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) do not always need these gel-based assays. They are also the most abundant of all marker systems known so far, both in animal and plant genomes. A large number of SNPs have already been developed in the human genome, some of them proving useful for diagnosis of diseases. A beginning has also been made in the development and use of SNPs in higher plants, including some crop and …