Update and elucidation of kinomes: Prioritization of kinases as potential drug targets for malaria.

Malaria is a tropical disease caused by spp. and transmitted by the bite of infected mosquitoes. Protein kinases (PKs) play key roles in the life cycle of the etiological agent of malaria, turning these proteins attractive targets for antimalarial drug discovery campaigns. As part of an effort to understand parasite signaling functions, we report the results of a bioinformatics pipeline analysis of PKs of eight species. To date, no and kinome assemble has been conducted. We classified, curated and annotated predicted kinases to update kinomes published to date, as well as report for the first time the kinomes of and . Overall, from 76 to 97 PKs were identified among all spp. kinomes. Most of the kinases were assigned to seven of nine major kinase groups: AGC, CAMK, CMGC, CK1, STE, TKL, OTHER; and the group FIKK. About 30% of kinases have been deeply classified into group, family and subfamily levels and only about 10% remained unclassified. Furthermore, updating and comparing the kinomes of and allowed for the prioritization and selection of kinases as potential drug targets that could be explored for discovering new drugs against malaria. This integrated approach resulted in the selection of 37 protein kinases as potential targets and the identification of investigational compounds with moderate activity against asexual (3D7 and Dd2 strains) stages that could serve as starting points for the search of potent antimalarial leads in the future.