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Background  Nasopharyngeal carcinoma (NPC) is an Epstein-Barr virus (EBV)-associated epithelial malignancy that exhibits distinct geographical and ethnic prevalence. Although the contemporary therapeutic approach of radio-/chemotherapy provides excellent results for patients with early-stage disease, it is far from satisfactory for those with disease remission and distant metastasis. Promising therapeutic strategies for advanced and relapsed NPC are still lacking. We recently identified and characterized a cancer stem-like cell (CSC) subpopulation in NPC that appeared to play an important role in tumor progression. Microarray analysis revealed downregulation of several stemness-inhibiting miRNAs in these CSC cells. Among these miRNAs,  miR-96  and  miR-183  showed the highest fold change and were selected to elucidate their role in repressing NPC CSC properties.    Methods   MiR-96  and  miR-183  expression in NPC CSCs was detected by qRT-PCR. Transient and stable transfection was performed in EBV-positive NPC C666-1 cells to examine the effects of ectopic expression of  miR-96  and  miR-183  on repressing cell growth and CSC properties. Anchorage-dependent (colony formation) and anchorage-independent (tumor sphere formation) growths of these  miR-96  and  miR-183  expressing cells were determined. Expression of multiple CSC markers and related molecules were accessed by flow cytometry and Western blotting. The tumorigenicity of the stable  miR-96-  and  miR-183 -transfected NPC cells was examined in an in vivo nude mice model.    Results  Downregulation of  miR-96  and  miR-183  was confirmed in NPC spheroids. Using transient or stable transfection, we showed that ectopic expression of  miR-96  and  miR-183  suppressed cell growth and tumor sphere formation in NPC. Reduced NICD3 and NICD4 in  miR-96 - and  miR-183 -expressing NPC cells suggests the involvement of the NOTCH signaling pathway in their tumor suppressive function. Finally, we showed that the tumorigenicity of cells stably expressing  miR-183  was significantly inhibited in the in vivo nude mice model.    Conclusions   miR-183  is a tumor-suppressive miRNA in EBV-associated NPC. Its abilities to suppress CSC properties in vitro and effectively reduce tumor growth in vivo shed light on its role as a potential therapeutic target.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:10.1186/s12885-016-2525-5) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

MicroRNA-183 suppresses cancer stem-like cell properties in EBV-associated nasopharyngeal carcinoma