Association Between the Levels of Hsp60 and Hsp70 in Peripheral Blood Lymphocytes and the Noise Induced Hearing Loss

Objective To investigate the association between the levels of heat shock protein 60(Hsp60)and heat shock protein 70(Hsp70)in peripheral blood lymphocytes and the noise induced hearing loss(NIHL).Method The cross-sectional epidemiological study was used in the investigation,included 117 noise exposed workers selected as the objects,who were divided into the NIHL group and the normal hearing group.The expression levels of Hsp70 and Hsp60 in lymphocytes of peripheral blood were detected by Western-Blot method.Result There was no significant difference of Hsp60 and Hsp70 levels between the NIHL workers caused by high frequency noise and low frequency noise(P0.05).Adjusting the impact factors such as age,sex,smoking,explosive noise exposure and cumulative noise exposure level(CNE),the results were still no change.But Hsp70 level seemed to show some negative correlation with CNE(P=0.058)and some positive correlation with Hsp60(P=0.017).Conclusion It is indicated that the levels of Hsp70 and Hsp60 in peripheral lymphocytes might be not directly related to NIHL caused by high or low frequency noise,the level of Hsp70 may reflect the cumulative noise load of the body,but no correlation between Hsp60 level in peripheral lymphocytes and cumulative noise load was found.