Abstract: Objective To investigate the expression of microRNA-328 （miR-328） in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues and its effect on invasion and migration of CNE-2 cells. Methods  The quantitative real-time PCR （QPCR） was used to detect the levels of miR-328 in 86 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues and 15 cases of chronic nasopharyngitis as well as nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines CNE-2， HK1 and normal nasopharyngeal epithelial cell line NP69. The relationship between the levels of miR-328 and the clinicopathological features （age， sex， clinical stage， lymph node metastasis， recurrence and survival status） of nasopharyngeal carcinoma was analyzed. MiR-328 mimics or negative control （NC） were transfected into CNE-2 cells at logarithmic phase by liposome Lipofectamine 2000. The miR-328 level was detected by QPCR at 48 h after transfection to evaluate the transfection efficiency. The numbers of penetrating cells of CNE-2 cells were detected by Transwell migration and invasion assay. Results The Results  of QPCR showed that the miR-328 levels in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines CNE-2 and HK1 were lower than those in normal nasopharyngeal epithelial cell line NP69 （P＜0.05）， and the miR-328 levels in 86 cases of nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues were lower than those in 15 cases of chronic nasopharyngitis （P＜0.05）. The miR-328 level was related to the recurrence （P=0.037）， clinical stage （P=0.005） and survival （P=0.012）， but not to age， sex and lymph node metastasis （P＞0.05）. After 48-h transfection， the miR-328 level in cells transfected with mimics was significantly higher than that in cells transfected with NC （P＜0.05）. Transwell assay showed that the numbers of CNE-2 cells transfected with mimics were significantly lower than those with NC （P＜0.05）. Conclusion miR-328 is lowly expressed in both nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues and cells， and participates in the occurrence and development of nasopharyngeal carcinoma. Up-regulating its level can inhibit the migration and invasion process， which has a certain value in the prevention and treatment of nasopharyngeal carcinoma.

Key words: Nasopharyngeal carcinoma, MicroRNA-328, Migration and invasion