Retraction to: Oncogene https://doi.org/10.1038/s41388-019-0709-6, published online 28 January 2019

The Editor-in-Chief has retracted this article. The authors requested to correct the data in the article for figures 2A, 2B, 7I and Supplementary Figure 12 quoting mistakes in the image processing procedure when preparing the figures originally. When asked to provide the original data, the images could not be verified in such a way that would support a correction. The authors were also unable to share satisfactory evidence of ethics approval. The Editor has therefore lost confidence in the data and conclusions of this article.

Author Hui Dong disagrees with this retraction. Author John Carethers agrees with this retraction. The Publisher has been unable to contact authors Jilin Wu and Jingjing Liu. All other authors did not respond to correspondence from the Publisher about this retraction.