VEGFA and myocardial infarction: Interestingly, the addition of apoptotic cells to macrophages in vitro induced the secretion of vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF), while in vivo, mice with defective efferocytosis exhibited diminished lymphatic vessel neogenesis and VEGF levels after MI, providing additional evidence from a different perspective to support the correlation between macrophage efferocytosis function and subsequent myocardial repair and remodeling following MI [114].