COPD and levels of Hsp70 (HSPA1A) and Hsp27 (HSPB1) in plasma and lymphocytes among coal workers: a case-control study

Abstract

This case-control study aimed to investigate whether the levels of Hsp70 (HSPA1A) and Hsp27 (HSPB1) in plasma and lymphocytes were associated with the risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) among coal workers. A total of 76 COPD cases and 48 age-matched healthy controls from a group of coal workers were included. The case group consisted of 35 COPD patients whose condition was complicated with coal workers' pneumoconiosis (CWP) and 41 COPD patients without CWP. Heat shock proteins (Hsps) in plasma and lymphocytes were detected by ELISA and flow cytometry, respectively. Multiple logistic regression models were applied to estimate the association between Hsp levels and COPD risk. Our results showed that plasma Hsp70 and lymphocyte Hsp27 levels were significantly higher and plasma Hsp27 levels were significantly lower in COPD cases than in controls (p<0.01). No significant differences in lymphocyte Hsp70 levels were found between COPD cases and the matched subjects. Higher plasma Hsp70 levels (odds ratio (OR)=13.8, 95 % confidence interval (CI)=5.7-33.5) and lower plasma Hsp27 levels (OR=4.6, 95 % CI= 2.0-10.5) were significantly associated with an increased risk of COPD after adjusting for confounders. Higher lymphocyte Hsp27 levels were only associated with an increased risk of COPD with CWP (OR=6.6, 95 % CI=2.0-22.1) but not with an increased risk of COPD without CWP (OR=3.0, 95 % CI= 0.9-8.9). Additionally, there were strong joint effects of different Hsps on COPD risk. These results showed that higher levels of plasma Hsp70 and lower levels of plasma Hsp27 might be associated with an increased risk of COPD among coal workers. They may have the potential to serve as monitoring markers for COPD in coal workers.

The detection and role of heat shock protein 70 in various nondisease conditions and disease conditions: a literature review

“…Therefore, the major detection methods for HSP70 have included extracellular fluid-based enzyme-linked immunosorbent assays (ELISAs) (Jenei et al 2013a;Rejdak et al 2012;Chebotareva et al 2014;Agnew 2011;Cui et al 2015) for plasma and immunofluorescence (Cui et al 2015), western blotting (Cui et al 2015), qRT-PCR (Gómez-Chocoa 2014), and flow cytometry (Cui et al 2015;Agnew 2011;Gómez-Chocoa 2014) for plasma or urine, as well as immunohistochemical analysis Gehrmann et al 2014a;Omar et al 1990) of various tissues and cells. ELISA is an optimized method for detecting serum concentrations of HSP70.…”

Hsp27 and Hsp70 in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: certainties vs doubts

“…This would mean that Hsp-level changes in sera from COPD patients could be a similar phenomenon as * Francesco Cappello francapp@hotmail.com that observed in other chronic inflammatory diseases, involving the bowel (Rodolico et al 2010) or the thyroid (Marino Gammazza et al 2014) and would render very difficult a direct comparison of results obtained from examining tissue and serum or plasma. We suggest that the discrepancy in the levels of Hsp27 in tissue (as shown by Cappello et al 2011) and in plasma (as shown by Cui et al 2015) could be due to various factors, such as (1) they did not sub-divide COPD patients without CWP in two subgroups, as we did;…”

Serendipity and technical considerations for the measurement of serum heat shock protein HSP27 in patients with COPD and lung cancer

“…We have read with great interest the work by Cui et al (2015) and the letter to the Editor by Cappello et al (2015). Historical knowledge of data acquisition and interpretation is paramount in the field of applied medical research.…”

“…By interpreting the report by Cui et al (2015) and its comment by Cappello et al (2015), we want to allude to a recent publication by our research group (Zimmermann et al 2014). It has to be accepted by the community that an ELISA detection kit for protein XY is sometimes not detecting protein XY (Mueller et al 2012).…”

“…We conclude that the results of our clinical method comparison study revealed that commercially available HSP27 assays are not equally useful in detecting increased serum HSP27. By looking at Cui et al (2015), we observed that a Stressgen Bioreagent HSP27 ELISA was utilized. Since we have not included this commercially available ELISA system in our study, we have difficulty in interpreting the presented results.…”