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HOXA cluster antisense RNA 3 (HOXA-AS3) is considered to be involved in several malignancies, however, its biological function in the progression of epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) remains unclear. The present study compared the expression of HOXA-AS3 in ovarian cancer and normal ovarian tissues and analyzed the association between the expression of HOXA-AS3 and the survival outcomes of patients with ovarian cancer. RNA interference was used to suppress HOXA-AS3 expression in ovarian cancer cell lines in order to demonstrate the function of HOXA-AS3 in ovarian cancer progression. The associations between HOXA-AS3 and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) markers were explored to verify the mechanism of action of HOXA-AS3 in ovarian cancer. The results of the present study revealed that ovarian cancer tissues exhibited higher HOXA-AS3 expression than normal ovarian tissues. Clinical data indicated that HOXA-AS3 was a significant predictor of progression-free survival and overall survival. Patients with high HOXA-AS3 expression had a poorer prognosis than patients with low HOXA-AS3 expression. In vitro experiments using HOXA-AS3-knockdown ovarian cancer cell lines demonstrated that HOXA-AS3 knockdown inhibited cell proliferation and migration. HOXA-AS3 was a potent inducer and modulator of the expression of EMT pathway-related markers and interacted with both the mRNA and protein forms of HOXA3. Collectively, the findings of the present study demonstrated that HOXA-AS3 expression is associated with ovarian cancer progression and thus, may be employed as a prognostic marker and therapeutic target in EOC.

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