Protein kinases are enzymes that play essential roles in the regulation of many cellular processes. Despite expansions in the fields of genomics, transcriptomics and bioinformatics, there is limited information on the kinase complements (kinomes) of most eukaryotic organisms, including parasitic worms that cause serious diseases of humans and animals. The biological uniqueness of these worms and the draft status of their genomes pose challenges for the identification and classification of protein kinases using established tools. In this article, we provide an account of kinase biology, the roles of kinases in diseases and their importance as drug targets, and drug discovery efforts in key socioeconomically important parasitic worms. In this context, we summarise methods and resources commonly used for the curation, identification, classification and functional annotation of protein kinase sequences from draft genomes; review recent advances made in the characterisation of the worm kinomes; and discuss the implications of these advances for investigating kinase signalling and developing small-molecule inhibitors as new anti-parasitic drugs.

蛋白激酶是在许多细胞过程的调节中起重要作用的酶。尽管在基因组学，转录组学和生物信息学领域有所扩展，但是关于大多数真核生物，包括引起人类和动物严重疾病的寄生虫的真核生物的激酶补体（激酶组）的信息有限。这些蠕虫的生物学独特性及其基因组的草图状态对使用已建立的工具进行蛋白激酶的鉴定和分类提出了挑战。在本文中，我们介绍了激酶生物学，激酶在疾病中的作用及其作为药物靶标的重要性，以及在具有重要社会经济意义的寄生虫中发现药物的努力。在此背景下，我们总结了通常用于策展，识别，来自草图基因组的蛋白激酶序列的分类和功能注释；回顾蠕虫激酶组表征的最新进展；并讨论了这些进展对于研究激酶信号传导和开发小分子抑制剂作为新型抗寄生虫药物的意义。