Objective To investigate the effect of circSKA3 on the malignant behaviors of ovari-an cancer cells and its potential mechanism.Methods Human ovarian cancer SK-OV-3 cells were cultured in vitro and randomly divided into si-NC group,si-circSKA3 group,miR-NC group,miR-532-5p group and si-circSKA3+anti-miR-NC and si-circSKA3+anti-miR-532-5p group.The expres-sion levels of circSKA3 and miR-532-5p were detected by quantitative real-time polymerase chain re-action(qRT-PCR).Cell proliferation,apoptosis and migration were detected by CCK-8 assay,plate clone formation assay,flow cytometry and Transwell assay.The targeting relationship between circS-KA3 and miR-532-5p was evaluated using dual-luciferase reporter assays.Protein expression of Cleaved-caspase3 was measured by Western blotting.Results The expression level of circSKA3 in ovarian cancer tissues was significantly higher than that in adjacent normal ovarian tissues(P＜0.05).The expression of miR-532-5p in the ovarian cancer tissues was significantly lower than that in the adjacent normal ovarian tissues(P＜0.05).Compared with the si-NC group,the si-circSKA3 group showed significantly reduced circSKA3 expression,increased miR-532-5p expression,elevat-ed cell proliferation inhibition rates and apoptosis rates,decreased colony formation numbers and mi-grating cell counts,and significantly higher Cleaved-caspase3 protein expression(P＜0.05).Circ-SKA3 was found to target miR-532-5p.After transfection with miR-532-5p mimictors,cell prolifera-tion and cell migration were inhibited,and the inhibition rate of cell proliferation,the apoptosis rate,and the protein level of Cleaved-caspase3 were significantly increased(P＜0.05).Compared with transfection with circSKA3 small interfering RNA alone,co-transfection with circSKA3 small in-terfering RNA and miR-532-5p inhibitor promoted cell proliferation and migration,inhibited apopto-sis rates,and reduced Cleaved-caspase3 protein expression(P＜0.05).Conclusion Silencing circSKA3 upregulates miR-532-5p expression,thereby inhibiting the malignant development of ovar-ian cancer cells.