APOE and atherosclerosis: Interestingly, ADAM17 has been described to be overexpressed in ruptured coronary plaques from infarcted patients and atherosclerotic plaques from apolipoprotein E knockout mice (apoE−/−, an important experimental model of atherosclerosis; Canault et al., 2006; Satoh et al., 2008), revealing its fundamental role in this vascular disease.