VEGFA and diabetic kidney disease: Vascular endothelial growth factor-A (VEGF-A) and nitric oxide (NO) are essential for glomerular filtration barrier homeostasis, and both are disregulated in diabetic nephropathy (Papapetropoulos et al., 1997; Shen et al., 1999; Hohenstein et al., 2006; Tufro and Veron, 2012).