“…The former could be caused either by shedding of this receptor by cellular proteases or by an active secretion process, in a similar mechanism to that described for sFlt-1, in which this soluble form of the VEGF-A receptor functions as a decoy receptor, modulating the effects of its ligand ( Kendall et al, 1996 ). Of note, higher sTie2 levels have been previously described in conditions such as acute myocardial infarction ( Wang et al, 2005 ), acute myeloid leukemia ( Attia et al, 2010 ), neuroendocrine tumors ( Melen-Mucha et al, 2012 ) and obesity ( Gozal et al, 2017 ), among other conditions associated with inflammation. Moreover, sVEC levels were lower in COVID-19, in an interesting contrast with sepsis ( Zhang et al, 2010 ), autoimmune disease ( Chen et al, 2014 ) and atherosclerosis ( Soeki et al, 2004 ), in which this mediator was consistently higher in patients compared to healthy individuals.…”