Molecular Therapeutic Approach Focusing on Kinases

Abstract

So far, there are 538 kinases found in the human proteome. Most of these kinases play a critical role in normal and aberrant signaling biology. In the last three decades, the kinase research field has exploded with myriad unknown findings related to kinases and their disease association. Based on these seminal findings, we can now assert that >85% of identified kinases are dysregulated in at least one or more diseases. Due to these remarkable statistics, novel kinase targeting strategies have been utilized, primarily involving small molecule inhibitors. So far, the FDA has approved around 80 kinase inhibitors (mostly small molecule inhibitors). Here in this chapter, we provide a description of kinases and their families, kinase-disease association and an up-to-date status of kinase-based therapeutics.

Keywords: Disease Biology, Kinases, Kinase Inhibitors, Kinome Biology, Therapeutics, Pediatric Leukemia, Phosphatases, Phosphoproteomics, Protein Phosphorylation.