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Article History

Received: 19 July 2019

Accepted: 21 November 2020

First Online: 4 January 2021

Compliance with ethical standards

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: The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

: Ethical approval for collection of post-operative breast tumor tissue samples and peripheral blood from breast cancer patients/healthy female volunteers and subsequent experiments with them for this study was sanctioned under the provision of ethics committee, ESI Post Graduate Institute of Medical Science and Research, Kolkata, India (Approval No: ESI-PGIMSR/MKT/IEC/13/2017 dated: 22 Dec, 2017) and Human Ethics Committee, Bose Institute (Approval No: BIHEC/2017-18/5, dated: 28 May, 2017). Collection of samples from patients with localized disease and from healthy female volunteers and subsequent experimental procedures were in compliance with the Helsinki Declaration ().<b>Ethical standards</b>All animal (BALB/c mice) experiments were performed following Principles of laboratory animal care (NIH publication no. 85–23, revised in 1985) as well as Indian laws on ‘Protection of Animals’ under the provision of the Bose Institute Ethics Committee for the purpose of control and supervision of experiments on animals (Reg. no. 95/99/CPCSEA; Approval no: IAEC/BI/24/2015, dated: 26 May, 2015).

: Written Informed consent (IRB-1382) was obtained prior to sample collection from all individual participants included in the study. As per provisions of the consent forms, the participants agreed to donate peripheral blood/tissue samples for research purposes and did not restrict the authorized use of any data or results that arise from this study on condition of confidentiality of identity and personal health records. The personal identity of participants has not been disclosed anywhere in this study.

: BALB/c mice, weighing 20–25 g, were obtained from the Central Translational Animal Research facility of Bose Institute, India.

: Human umbilical vein endothelial cells (HUVECs) were purchased from (Proforma Inv. no: 000075), HiMedia, India. The cells were authenticated by their cobblestone-like structure and Von Willebrand Factor, and CD31 positivity. Mouse mammary epithelial cancer cell 4T1 were obtained from ATCC. MCF-7 cells were obtained from National Center for Cell Science (NCCS), Pune, India.