mitogens can be either endogenous or exogenous factors. endogenous mitogens function to control cell division is a normal and necessary part of the life cycle of multicellular organisms. for example, in zebrafish, an endogenous mitogen nrg1 is produced in response to indications of heart damage. when it is expressed, it causes the outer layers of the heart to respond by increasing division rates and producing new layers of heart muscle cells to replace the damaged ones. this pathway can potentially be deleterious, however: expressing nrg1 in the absence of heart damage causes uncontrolled growth of heart cells, creating an enlarged heart. some growth factors, such as vascular endothelial growth factor, are also capable of directly acting as mitogens, causing growth by directly inducing cell replication. this is not true for all growth factors, as some growth factors instead appear to cause mitogenic effects like growth indirectly by triggering other mitogens to be released, as evidenced by their lack of mitogenic activity in vitro, which vegf has.. other well-known mitogenic growth factors include platelet derived growth factor (pdgf) and epidermal growth factor (egf).