Laryngeal cancer is one of the most commonly occurring malignant cancers of the head and neck region (1). It rates second in incidence among head and neck cancers, and 11th among all human cancers

Laryngeal cancer is one of the most commonly occurring malignant cancers of the head and neck region. In the present study, we investigated the roles of miR-221 in laryngeal squamous cell carcinoma cell line, Hep-2. We examined the function and mechanism of miR-221 in Hep-2 cells using techniques of cell biology and molecular pathology, such as western blotting, quantitative PCR, immunohistochemical staining and flow cytometry. Using a luciferase assay, the apoptotic protease activating factor-1 (Apaf-1) mRNA 3'-UTR was shown to have complementary binding sites using bioinformatics prediction software including TargetScan, PicTar and miRanda. In conclusion, our results showed that miR-221 inhibition caused elevated expression levels of the Apaf-1 apoptotic pathway proteins caspase-3, -8 and -9. miR-221 may therefore be used as a novel therapeutic target for laryngeal cancer.