The advancement in biological research encompassing, generation of huge amount of molecular-genetic data, development of

impressive methodological skills in molecular biology experimentation, and system and systems analyses, has set the stage to

search for ways/means to utilize the available resources to strengthen interdisciplinary efforts to find solutions to the

challenging goals in crop improvement. With the advent of molecular markers, a new generation of markers has been

introduced over the last two and half decades, which has revolutionized the entire scenario of biological sciences. A positive

fall out of such a realization and efforts has been the identification/development of a new class of very useful DNA markers

called genic molecular markers (GMMs) utilizing the ever-increasing archives of gene sequence information being

accumulated under the EST sequencing projects on a large number of plant species in the recent years. These markers being

part of the cDNA/EST- sequences, are expected to represent the functional component of the genome i.e. gene(s) in contrast to

all other random DNA-based markers (RDMs) that are developed/generated from the anonymous genomic DNA

sequences/demonstrate large effects on adaptive plant behavior remains fundamental to the development of GMMs. DNAbased

molecular markers have acted as versatile tools and have found their own position in various fields. They are no longer

looked upon as simple DNA fingerprinting markers in variability studies or as mere forensic tools. Ever since their

development, they are constantly being modified to enhance their utility and to bring about automation in the process of

genome analysis. The discovery of PCR (polymerase chain reaction) was a landmark in this effort and proved to be a unique

process that brought about a new class of DNA profiling markers. This facilitated the development of marker-based gene tags,

map-based cloning of ergonomically important genes, variability studies, phylogenic analysis, synteny mapping, markerassisted

selection of desirable genotypes, etc. In this article, genic/ functional developed during the last two decades of

molecular biology research and utilized for various applications in the area of plant genome analysis are reviewed.

Key Words: Gene based markers, Molecular markers, Plant breeding, Simple equnce repeat