author(s)
Jainullabudeen Gulsar Banu, Kandasamy Sankari Meena, Chellamuthu Selvi and Sadasivam Manickam

abstract
Plant parasitic nematodes are recognized as major agricultural pathogens and cause crop losses throughout the world. Conventional breeding tactic for nematode resistance in crop plants involves a laborious and time consuming task. Technical difficulties in selecting nematode-resistant plant accessions or progenies in a breeding program could be minimized by adopting more rapid and objective methods of genetic identification, such as marker-assisted selection (MAS). DNA based polymorphism, commonly known as DNA markers can be used for genetic improvement through selection for favourable traits. Molecular markers can play an important role in accelerating the introgression of genes conferring resistance to nematodes into high-yielding cultivars. It is clear that DNA markers hold great promise, but realizing that promise remains elusive. In future, chip-based, high-throughput genotyping platforms and the introduction of genomic selection will reduce the current problems of integrating MAS in practical breeding programs and open new avenues for a molecular-based resistance breeding.