Prostate cancer is one of the most common human malignancies, which represents a serious threat to health, and micrornas (mirnas/mirs) have been reported to be closely associated with the progression and development of prostate cancer. The present study aimed to investigate the expression patterns, functions and underlying mechanisms of mir-589-5p in prostate cancer. The results demonstrated that the expression levels of mir-589-5p were downregulated in prostate cancer tissues and cell lines. overexpression of mir-589-5p inhibited cell viability, migration and invasion in prostate cancer cells. Subsequently, chemokine (c-c motif) ligand 5 (CCL-5) was identified as a direct target gene of miR-589-5p, which was highly expressed at the mrna and protein levels in prostate cancer tissues and cells. Furthermore, ccl-5 mrna was negatively correlated with mir-589-5p expression in prostate cancer tissues. Silencing ccl-5 promoted the apoptosis, and inhibited the migration and invasion of prostate cancer cells. Taken together, these results indicated that mir-589-5p may act as a tumor suppressor in prostate cancer by targeting ccl-5, thus suggesting that mir-589-5p may be a novel and reliable molecular marker for the diagnosis and prognosis of prostate cancer.