After this article [1] was published, concerns were raised about the reported mouse tumor sizes. Specifically:

• Figs 6A appears to report tumor sizes of up to 6,000 mm³ with a standard deviation of approximately 800 mm³ for the Mock group.
• Fig 6B appears to report tumor sizes of up to 4,200 mm³ with a standard deviation of approximately 1,500 mm³ in the Mock group.
• The “in vivo subcutaneous human STS xenograft tumor models” subsection of the Materials and Methods section states that mice were euthanized when the mean tumor volume reached 4,000 mm³, which is higher than what is typically considered acceptable for subcutaneous tumor mouse experiments (2,000–2,500 mm³). The article does not provide a rationale for the specified endpoint criteria.

In response to editorial follow-up, the corresponding author stated that mice were euthanized if they had tumors exceeding 4,000 mm³ and >20% body weight loss, or if two or more mice had tumors exceeding 4,000 mm³ with ≤ 20% body weight loss.

The PLOS One Editors remain concerned that the endpoint criteria do not align with internationally accepted animal welfare standards for mouse tumor studies. Therefore, the PLOS One Editors retract this article [1].

The ethics approval document number was not reported in [1]. The corresponding author stated the approval numbers from the Ethics Review Committee for Animal Experimentation of Okayama University School of Medicine for the study in [1] are OKU-2018319 and OKU-2018789.

TOmori, HT, YY, SO, JH, KS, TomohiroF, AY, TKunisada, SK, TOzaki, and ToshiyoshiF agreed with the retraction. TKomatsubara and YU either did not respond directly or could not be reached.