Abstract
Following the publication of this paper, it was drawn to the Editors' attention by a concerned reader that certain of the flow cytometric data shown in Fig. 2C and the images of tumors shown in Fig. 7B were strikingly similar to data appearing in different form in other articles by different authors. Owing to the fact that the contentious data in the above article had already been published elsewhere, or were already under consideration for publication, prior to its submission to International Journal of Molecular Medicine, the Editor has decided that this paper should be retracted from the Journal. Independently of this investigation, the authors also requested a retraction of this article owing to the fact that the manuscript had been published without permission from one of the authors. The Editor apologizes to the readership for any inconvenience caused. [the original article was published in International Journal of Molecular Medicine 44: 346‑356, 2019; DOI: 10.3892/ijmm.2019.4203].