FGF2 and acute kidney injury: To address if FGF2 has an impact on AKI‐induced apoptotic process and how it may affect the apoptotic regulatory proteins, we first demonstrated that exogenous FGF2 dramatically reduced the number of TUNEL‐positive tubular cells and decreased the activation of caspase‐3, as well as caspase‐9 in renal tubular cells compared with I/R alone (Fig. 3B).