ACE2 and acute respiratory distress syndrome: ALI is induced by viral and bacterial infections and by gastro-intestinal events such as diarrhea SARS infection induces ALI following binding to airway epithelial cells, it is known that as the virus binds to ACEs, the abundance on the cell surface, mRNA expression, and the enzymatic activity of ACE2 are significantly reduced due shedding/internalizing processes (41, 42).