 Cucurbits are an important family of vegetables, and until recently, there have been few genetic and genomic resources available for cucumber breeding. This has hindered progress in cucumber breeding efforts. However, recent advances in genomics have allowed us to develop a large number of micro-satellite markers, or short-tandemly repeated DNA sequences, which are highly polymorphic and can be used as genetic markers. These markers are often preferred because they are highly informative and can be used to identify genetic relationships among different cucumber varieties. Additionally, micro-satellites are also useful for tracking the evolutionary history of cucumber species. We have surveyed and characterized the distribution and frequency of perfect micro-satellites in 203 megabase pairs of the GY14 cucumber genome sequence, representing 55% of its nuclear genome, and in cucumber-expressed sequence tag, ESD, sequences. We also compared our findings with those of seven other plant species. Our analysis revealed that cucumber has a high density of micro-satellites, with trinucleotides being the most frequent repeat motif. This article was authored by Simon-Philip W, Young-Lumming, Sennelik-Wlessay, and others. We are article.tv, links in the description below.