The ability of the Sox17-Erg-generated iECs to display properties that would be important for interacting with the cardiac microenvironment (such as interacting with cardiomyocytes) and to potentially impact the native cardiac vasculature at 7 days and 4 weeks post myocardial infarction illustrates the potential to generate blood vessels using organ-specific fibroblasts. Here, SOX17 is linked to myocardial infarction.