A T7 promoter sequence or the same sequence followed by a stable hairpin was cloned into the HindIII and XbaI restriction sites upstream of the 5′UTRs for the cap-dependent or cap-independent translation assays, respectively. The hairpin sequence (5′-CTGCAGCCACCACGGCCCAAGCTTGGGGG CCGTGGTGGCTGCAGGAGAGAGATTCC-3′) was used to inhibit ribosome scanning (Wang et al. 2013).