HMGB1 and congenital bilateral aplasia of vas deferens from CFTR mutation: Recent studies in patients and animal models have associated this protein with CAVD, since tissue and plasma levels of HMGB1 are increased in patients with CAVD (Wang et al., 2016a), and can be detected in the secretory granules of endothelial and interstitial cells explanted from diseased valves (Passmore et al., 2015).