hBolA, novel non-classical secreted proteins, belonging to different BolA family with functional divergence.

This study reported that all three human BolA proteins (hBolA1, hBolA2, and hBolA3) are novel non-classical secreted proteins identified with bioinformatics and molecular biology experiments. The three BolA fusion proteins with c-Myc tag could be secreted into the culture medium of the transfected Cos-7 cells, although they could not be colocalized with Golgi apparatus. And the secretion of three BolA proteins could not be inhibited after BFA treatment. Furthermore, the secretion was not dependent on its predicted signal peptide. All the experiment results suggested that the secretion was a non-classical export. Phylogenetic analysis showed that the human BolAs belong to three different groups with functional divergence of BolA subfamily, where the different helix-turn-helix motif among hBolA1, hBolA2, and hBolA3 could be responsible for their functional divergence. Our data provided a basis for functional studies of BolA protein family.