To this purpose we first assessed the colon expression of Ace2 in mice administered with oxazolone or TNBS (two models of human CD) or DSS (a model of human UC) [31] and found that all three agents promoted a severe inflammatory response, as measured by strong upregulation of the expression of pro-inflammatory markers Tnf-α, Il-1β, Il-6 and Ifn-γ in the colon, and that these changes were associated with a robust increase in the expression of Ace2 mRNA, in agreement with results obtained in IBD patients, shown in Figure 2 and Figure S1). This evidence concerns the gene ACE2 and Cowden disease.