Endothelial progenitor cell mobilization and homing mechanisms have been studied in great detail in the context of ischemic diseases; for review, see Verloop et al. (2009); vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF) and SDF-1 have been identified as key mediators of EPC mobilization (Asahara et al., 1999; Kawakami et al., 2015). Here, VEGFA is linked to ischemic disease.