This imbalance leads to systemic endothelial dysfunction, including in the kidney (Kaufmann et al., 2003; Venkatesha et al., 2006), where disruption of slit diaphragm was reported (Garovic et al., 2007a; Henao et al., 2008; Zhao et al., 2009), as VEGF is essential for the maintenance glomerular barrier (Baelde et al., 2007). The gene discussed is VEGFA; the disease is endothelial dysfunction.