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<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Kinesins constitute a large superfamily of motor proteins in eukaryotic cells. They perform diverse tasks such as vesicle and organelle transport and chromosomal segregation in a microtubule- and ATP-dependent manner. In recent years, the genomes of a number of eukaryotic organisms have been completely sequenced. Subsequent studies revealed and classified the full set of members of the kinesin superfamily expressed by these organisms. For <it>Dictyostelium discoideum</it>, only five kinesin superfamily proteins (Kif's) have already been reported.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>Here, we report the identification of thirteen kinesin genes exploiting the information from the raw shotgun reads of the <it>Dictyostelium discoideum </it>genome project. A phylogenetic tree of 390 kinesin motor domain sequences was built, grouping the <it>Dictyostelium </it>kinesins into nine subfamilies. According to known cellular functions or strong homologies to kinesins of other organisms, four of the <it>Dictyostelium </it>kinesins are involved in organelle transport, six are implicated in cell division processes, two are predicted to perform multiple functions, and one kinesin may be the founder of a new subclass.</p> <p>Conclusion</p> <p>This analysis of the <it>Dictyostelium </it>genome led to the identification of eight new kinesin motor proteins. According to an exhaustive phylogenetic comparison, <it>Dictyostelium </it>contains the same subset of kinesins that higher eukaryotes need to perform mitosis. Some of the kinesins are implicated in intracellular traffic and a small number have unpredictable functions.</p>