ACE2 and infection: These observations coupled with proposals from various authors that preexisting overexpression of ACE2 promotes infection of SARS-CoV-2 suggest that microbiota may be involved in inducing the dysregulation of ACE2 activity leading to susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection and cytokine storm (Sodhi et al., 2019; Gottschalk et al., 2021).