SOX9, one target of miR-145, has been reported up-regulated in many carcinomas and has been regarded to be an important oncogene which promotes migration (Liu et al. 2017; Xiong et al. 2017) found that SOX9 functioned as a tumor promotion in hepatocellular carcinoma partially induced by miR-138 (Liu et al. 2016b). Here, SOX9 is linked to hepatocellular carcinoma.