Activated ADAM17 promotes the shedding of substrates, including proinflammatory factors [such as tumour necrosis factor α (TNF-α)] and growth factors [such as epidermal growth factor (EGF) and heparin-binding EGF-like growth factor (HB-EGF)] [10], thus triggering a cascade of mitogen-activated protein kinase to advance cardiac hypertrophy via the transcriptional activation of immediate-early genes and foetal genes referred to as hypertrophic genes [8]. The gene discussed is HBEGF; the disease is cardiac hypertrophy.