VEGFA and acute respiratory distress syndrome: Genetic susceptibility to ARDS has been reported for the genes that are highly expressed in endothelial cells and have functional significance for normal cellular function, including ANGPT2 (ANGPT2), TIE2 (TEK), ACE, PBEF (NAMPT), VEGF (VEGFA), and PAI1 (SERPINE1) (Acosta-Herrera et al., 2014).