MMP2 and hypertensive disorder: For ET1 and MMP2, no significant impact of the analyzed risk factors on expression could be detected, but the ACTA2 expression was found to be dependent on age (Figure 3A, Table S7, p < 0.005) and hypertension (Figure 3E, Table S7, p < 0.03), indicating that atherosclerotic plaques in elderly hypertensive people have a lower expression when compared to younger or non-hypertensive people.