FGF2 and ischemia: Concomitantly, basic fibroblast growth factor (bFGF) exhibits biphasic upregulation (peaking at 1 h and sustained for 14 days post-ischemia) (Huang et al., 2023), potentiating angiogenesis via direct EC stimulation and VEGF paracrine induction in VSMCs (Kanazawa et al., 2019).