However, they are in agreement with a study on 2K1C rats which employed western blot and immunohistochemistry to demonstrate that ACE2 is attenuated in the early stages of hypertension (Kim et al., 2016), and a study on subtotal nephrectomized (STNx) rats, which showed that renal ACE2 activity is reduced in acute kidney injury, which contributes to the development of CKD (Velskoska et al., 2010). Here, ACE2 is linked to chronic kidney disease.