Article Text

Download PDFPDF
Original article
Genetic variation in EYA4 on the risk of noise-induced hearing loss in Chinese steelworks firm sample
  1. Qiuyue Yang1,
  2. Xiangrong Xu1,
  3. Jie Jiao2,
  4. Yuxin Zheng3,
  5. Lihua He1,
  6. Shanfa Yu2,
  7. Guizhen Gu2,
  8. Guoshun Chen4,
  9. Wenhui Zhou2,
  10. Hui Wu2,
  11. Yanhong Li2,
  12. Huanling Zhang4,
  13. Zengrui Zhang2
  1. 1Department of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Peking University, Beijing, People's Republic of China
  2. 2Henan Provincial Institute for Occupational Health, Zhengzhou, People's Republic of China
  3. 3National Institute of Occupational Health and Poison Control, Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, Beijing, People's Republic of China
  4. 4Wugang Institute for Occupational Health, Wugang, People's Republic of China
  1. Correspondence to Professor Lihua He, Department of Occupational Health and Environmental Health, School of Public Health, Peking University, No. 38 Xueyuan Road, Haidian District, Beijing 100191, China; alihe2009{at}126.com; Professor Shanfa Yu, Henan Provincial Institute for Occupational Health, 3 Middle Kangfu Street, Erqi District, Zhengzhou, 450052, China; yu-shanfa@163.com.

Abstract

Objectives Noise-induced hearing loss is one of the most serious occupational diseases worldwide. It is caused by interactions between environmental and genetic factors. The purpose of this study was to examine the association between the genetic susceptibility of the eye absent homolog 4 (EYA4) gene and the risk of developing noise-induced hearing loss in China.

Methods A case–control association study was carried out with 326 hearing loss cases and 326 controls matched with age and duration of noise exposure, drawn from a cohort of steel workers. Five single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) in the EYA4 were selected and genotyped. Logistic regression was performed to analyse the main effect of genotypes and interactions between genotypes and individual/environmental factors adjusted for confounding factors. Moreover, generalised multiple dimensionality reduction was applied to further detect interaction among the 5 selected SNPs.

Results Analysis revealed that locus polymorphism of rs3813346 was associated with the risk of developing noise-induced hearing loss in the dominance model, the codominance model and the addictive model (p=0.004, 0.009 and 0.003, respectively). A significant interaction between rs9321402 and cumulative noise exposure was found (p=0.002). A significant main effect p value (p=0.006) was obtained in the high-level exposure group (cumulative noise exposure ≥98 dB(A)). Generalised multiple dimensionality reduction indicated that the combined interaction of the 2 loci—rs3813346 and rs9493627—significantly affected the incidence of noise-induced hearing loss.

Conclusions The research suggests that EYA4 genetic variant and its interaction with noise levels may modify the susceptibility to develop noise-induced hearing loss in Chinese population.

  • Noise-Induced Hearing Loss
  • Genetic Variability
  • EYA4 gene

Statistics from Altmetric.com

Request Permissions

If you wish to reuse any or all of this article please use the link below which will take you to the Copyright Clearance Center’s RightsLink service. You will be able to get a quick price and instant permission to reuse the content in many different ways.

Footnotes

  • Correction notice This paper has been updated since it published online first. The corresponding author Professor Shanfa Yu has been added.

  • Contributors QY performed the statistical analysis for this study and drafted the manuscript. LH and SY designed the project and critically reviewed the manuscript. YZ was responsible for quality control of the project. JJ, WZ, YL, QY, XX and ZZ conducted the study design, completed the experiment and data collection. JJ, GG, GC, HW, HZ and ZZ participated in the epidemiological investigation. XX assisted in the analysis of the study data. All authors have read the final version of the manuscript and have given final approval of this version of the manuscript to be published.

  • Funding This study was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of the People's Republic of China (81372940) and Research Fund from National Science and Technology Infrastructure Program of the People's Republic of China (2014BAI12B03).

  • Competing interests None declared.

  • Provenance and peer review Not commissioned; externally peer reviewed.