VEGFA and myocardial infarction: In this regard, Shudo et al. demonstrated improved therapeutic benefits of primary skeletal myoblasts in a rat MI model by co-culturing the myoblasts with MSCs; the addition of MSCs to skeletal myoblasts' cell sheets led to enhanced angiogenesis due to increased secretion of a hepatocyte growth factor (HGF) and a vascular endothelial growth factor and consequently augmented cardiac functional recovery in the MI model, thereby suggesting it as a strategy for clinical applications.53