kmmer

Kmmer is a term with multiple potential meanings in information science and bioinformatics. It is commonly seen as a misspelling or variant of k-mer, a foundational concept in genomics, but it may also be the name of a software tool or research project. Because there is no single, universally recognized definition, the meaning of kmmer is context-dependent.

In the most widely used sense, a k-mer is a substring of length k from a biological sequence. For DNA sequences, k-mers are strings of k nucleotides such as length 31, widely used in sequence analysis. K-mer counting—tabulating how many times each distinct k-mer occurs—supports applications including genome size estimation, error correction, and de Bruijn-graph-based assembly. Efficient k-mer counting is a central task in high-throughput sequencing pipelines, with many specialized tools designed for large datasets.

If kmmer is used as a proper noun, it could refer to a specific software package, library, or project. In those cases, the precise features, algorithms, and performance characteristics depend on the authors and the release. To determine the intended meaning, one should consult the relevant documentation, repository, or publication.

See also k-mer; k-mer counting; de Bruijn graph; genome assembly; sequencing.