Retraction to: Genes & Immunity https://doi.org/10.1038/s41435-017-0005-9, published online 23 January 2018

The Editors-in-Chief have retracted this article because the research violates the Journal’s policy on animal ethics. The authors used male mice for tumor xenografts and allowed the tumors to grow to over 10% of total body weight limit which is incompatible with international best practice. A substantial number of mice in this study had tumors that weighed more than 10% of their body weight (>2.5 g). Murad Alahdal agrees to this retraction. Yiqin Wang, Jia Ye, Liangliang Jing, Xiaoxin Liu, Huan Chen, Liang Jin and Rongyue Cao have not responded to correspondence from the Publisher about this retraction.