Abstract:Objective To study the effect of miR-19b gene expression mediated by lentivirus on apoptosis and Wnt/β-catenin signal in nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells. Methods The expression of miR-19b in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues and human immortalized nasopharyngeal epithelial cell lines NP69 and nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell lines HONE1, 5-8F and CNE1 was detected by qRT-PCR. MiR-19b inhibition expression (miR-19b inhibitor), miR-19b overexpression and meaningless sequence (scrambled) lentivirus vector (miR-19b mimics) were constructed, and a blank group was set. Cells were transfected into the EBV negative nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell line HONE1, and RT-PCR was used to detect the expression of miR-19b in the transfected cells; cell viability was measured by MTT method at 24, 48 and 72 h after transfection; cell apoptosis was detected by flow cytometry at 48 h after transfection; the expression of Ki-67, p53, β-catenin, cyclin D1 and c-myc protein were detected by Western blotting. Results The expression of miR-19b in nasopharyngeal carcinoma tissues and cells increased significantly (P?0.05); there was no significant difference between the Scrambled group and the control group (P?>?0.05); compared with the control group, the expression of miR-19b was decreased significantly in miR-19b inhibitor group, miR-19b expression increased significantly in miR-19b mimics group (P?0.05); compared with the control group, cell viability were significantly reduced in miR-19b inhibitor group in 48?h and 72?h, while cells activity increased significantly in miR-19b mimics group (P?0.05); compared with the control group, the apoptosis rate of cells and p53 expression were significantly increased in miR-19b inhibitor group, the expression of Ki-67, β-cateninc were decreased significantly, the apoptosis rate of cells and p53 expression were decreased significantly in miR-19b mimics group, and the expression of Ki-67, β-catenin, cyclin D1 and c-myc were increased significantly (P?0.05). Conclusions Inhibition of miR-19b expression can reduce the viability of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells, induce apoptosis and down regulate the signaling pathway of Wnt / β-catenin, and the overexpression of miR-19b is opposite.