This gene product is a member of the PDGF/VEGF growth factor family. It is a mitogen that specifically acts on endothelial cells and has various effects, including mediating increased vascular permeability, inducing angiogenesis, vasculogenesis, endothelial cell growth, promoting cell migration, and inhibiting apoptosis. Alternatively spliced transcript variants encoding different isoforms have been found for this gene. Also, alternative translation initiation from non-AUG (CUG) and AUG start sites in some transcript variants, give rise to additional isoforms. The expression of some isoforms derived from AUG start codon is affected by a small upstream open reading frame, which is located within an internal ribosome entry site. [provided by RefSeq, Nov 2013]