A recent study in DOCA-salt hypertensive mice, demonstrated that low-renin hypertension was associated with reduced ACE2 expression and activity in the hypothalamus and increased ACE2 activity in the cerebrospinal fluid, as a result of increased shedding of ACE2 from the tissue membrane by ADAM17 (a disintegrin and metalloproteinase) (Xia et al., 2013). This evidence concerns the gene ADAM17 and hypertensive disorder.