Circulating Hepatocyte Growth Factor Reflects Activation of Vascular Repair in Response to Stress

•HGF is released by stressed human vascular cells and promotes vascular cell repair responses in autocrine and/or paracrine ways.•Subjects with a low capacity to express HGF in response to systemic stress have an increased cardiovascular risk.•Human atherosclerotic plaques with a low content of HGF have a more unstable phenotype.•The present study shows that subjects with a low ability to express HGF in response to metabolic stress have an increased risk to suffer cardiovascular events.