SPAG9 and hepatocellular carcinoma: To determine whether SPAG9 was a direct target of miR-141 in HCC, we cloned 728 bp fragments of the human SPAG9 3′-UTR mRNA containing the putative miRNA-binding site into the pmiR-RB-REPORTTM vector (Fig. 2a) and transfected this constructed vector (SPAG9-WT) into HEK293T cells along with miR-141 mimics, or a non-target control miRNA (NC).