ObjectiveTo observe the expressions of miR-143-3p in gastric cancer cells and gastric carcinoma tissues with its clinical significance, and to analyze the target genes with enriched pathway by using bioinformatics methods.MethodsThe expressions of miR-143-3p in different differentiation gastric cancer cells and normal gastric mucosa cell line, and the expressions in gastric cancer tissues and adjacent tissues were detected by real-time fluorescent quantitative PCR. In addition, OncomiR and YM500 databases were used to analyze the expression of miR-143-3p in gastric cancer tissues compared with adjacent tissues. Furthermore, the targets of miR-143-3p were predicted by using the software of miRecords website database, and at least three software-supported target genes were chosen to analyze the enriched the signal pathways in which the target gene was involved with DAVID 6.7 software.ResultsThe expressions of miR-143-3p in the different differentiation degree of gastric cancer cells compared with normal gastric mucosa cell line were downregulated (P<0.001), and the expression of miR-143-3p in gastric cancer tissues compared with adjacent tissues was also downregulated (downregulated in 36 cases, upregulated in 18 cases, and no alteration in 4 cases). The expression of miR-143-3p in gastric cancer tissues was associated with lymph node metastasis and invasion depth (P<0.05). Bioinformatics analysis results showed that the target genes of miR-143-3p were enriched in 38 signaling pathways associated with cancer.ConclusionMiR-143-3p is a down-regulated molecular marker in gastric cancer and a potentially clinically related tumor suppressor gene, which may be involved in the cancerous phenotype in carcinogenesis and development of gastric cancer.