VEGFA and myocardial infarction: qRT-PCR results show that hMSC-PA significantly upregulated the expression of several angiogenesis-related genes, such as vascular endothelial growth factor A (VEGFa), insulin-like growth factor 1 (IGF-1), fibroblast growth factor 2 (FGF2), placental growth factor (PLGF), angiopoietin 1 (Ang1), and angiopoietin 2 (Ang2), and cluster of differentiation 31 (CD31) in comparison with the MI control hearts, as well as the cell-free patch implanted group (Fig. 1e).