KINASE.COM

Genomics, evolution and function of protein kinases

kinase.com explores the functions, evolution and diversity of protein kinases, the key controllers of cell behavior. We focus on the kinome, the full complement of protein kinases in any sequenced genome. This includes our extensive KinBase database, and papers and supporting material for our published kinase work from Sugen and the Salk Institute.

News

  Sep 2011: New articles on Wikinome include profiles of three enigmatic kinase classes that are ancient, but poorly understood in any organism: the MAPK subfamily Erk7 and the CDK-related kinases CDKL and RCK. RCK has two equally unusual subfamililes, MAK and MOK, both associated with cilia.

  Jul 2011: Our paper on the Giardia kinome and the early evolution of protein kinases published in Genome Biology.

  Jun 2011: Update to our hyperbolic tree viewer Hypertree.

  Mar 2011: Kinome and kinase news now available through Twitter: @kinomics.

  Feb 2011: Human and mouse kinome data in KinBase have been updated with new atypical kinases, improved sequences and classifications. Details to follow...

  Oct 2010: The domain annotation of kinases is updated with profiles for 21 new domains and subdomains, and a rebuild of all kinase class-specific profiles.

  Aug 2010: We now have HMM Sequence Logos to display conservation patterns for every kinase group, family, and subfamily. Update: we're working to restore the Logo comparison tool that allows definition of class-specific conservation patterns.

  Aug 2010: The sponge kinome provides a remarkable picture of the emergence of massive kinase complexity in early animal development, including the first occurrence of human-style tyrosine kinases and many other key control pathways.

  June 2010: A detailed kinome search of the mushroom (Coprinopsis cinerea) shows a massive expansion in novel kinase families, and provides a distant fungal comparator for yeast kinases.

KinBase

KinBase holds information on over 3,000 protein kinase genes found in the genomes of human, and many other sequenced genomes. You may search the database by a variety of different gene names and accessions, or according to the sequence based classification. KinBase can also be searched by Blast.

Vertebrate kinomes

These include the major analysis of the human kinome, published in Science and a more recent PNAS paper on the mouse kinome and its comparison to human.

Model Organisms and Kinase Evolution

We have also carried out kinome analyses of several important model organisms: the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, the yeast Saccharomyces cerevisiae, the slime mold Dictyostelium discoideum and the ciliate Tetrahymena thermophila. Yeast and worm data were updated in a comparative Kinase Evolution analysis published in TiBS, and an update on nematode kinases, including those of C. briggsae, has been published in Wormbook.

We have also recently completed a comprehensive analysis of a wide variety of microbial kinases related to the eukaryotic protein kinase family, using genomic and metagenomic sequences.

Tools

HyperTree is our tool to visualize large phylogenetic trees, using hyperbolic ("fish-eye") views and a unique branch length transform.

Sequence Logos show HMM profiles as graphical logos and allow alignment, calculation, and manipulation of these logos.