Intramyocardial injections of rat aortic VSMCs, mouse bone marrow stromal cells, or human mesenchymal stem cells transfected with a TIMP3 plasmid have been reported to be more effective in improving cardiac structure and function post-MI than the cells without transfection (Angoulvant et al., 2009; Yao et al., 2012; Jia et al., 2014). Here, TIMP3 is linked to myocardial infarction.