Figure 3. Vascular density was assessed by 2‐way ANOVA.

(A) Alpha smooth muscle actin (αSMA) density was higher at baseline in the high fat diet (HFD) ischemic myocardial territory when compared with that of the normal diet (ND) group. Extracellular vesicle (EV) therapy promoted arteriogenesis in both the HFD and ND groups. (B) Although a modest rise of CD31 endothelial density was seen with EV treatment in ischemic territories of the myocardium in ND animals, this did not reach statistical significance and was not recapitulated in the HFD group, indicating that the HFD was associated with inhibition of the angiogenic response to EVs. Images of αSMA and CD31 staining of ischemic myocardial sections can be found in previous publications relating to this project ¹⁰ , ¹¹ which are included in the supplementary material.