VEGFA and pulmonary emphysema: Other implicated pathways in smoke related emphysema include the TGF-β signaling pathway via SMAD-3 (Farkas et al., 2011), cytokine IL-6 (Ruwanpura et al., 2011), VEGF (Kasahara et al., 2000; Tuder et al., 2003b), and autophagy via early growth response-1 (Egr-1) and the protein microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain-3B (LC3B) (Chen et al., 2008, 2010).