Metastasis-associated lung adenocarcinoma transcript 1 (MALAT1) is a 8,000 nucleotide-long, spliced non‑coding RNA, which has been reported to be deregulated in several tumors. However, to the best of our knowledge, the role of MALAT1 in ovarian cancer has not been previously investigated. The aim of the present study was to investigate the effect of MALAT1 inhibition on the tumorigenity of SKOV3 cells. First, stable MALAT1‑knockdown ovarian cancer cells and control cells were established using lentivirus‑mediated artificial micro RNA interference in order to investigate the effect of MALAT1 inhibition on cell viability, clonability, migration, invasion and apoptosis in vitro. In addition, the effect of MALAT1 on cell growth in nude mice was assessed. To identify the possible targets of MALAT1, total RNA was extracted from MALAT1‑knockdown cells and control cells and a microarray analysis was performed. The results showed that MALAT1 inhibition significantly suppressed tumorigenity in vitro and in vivo (P< 0.01). Compared with the control cells, 921 genes in the MALAT1‑knockdown cells were deregulated by at least two‑fold. The results of the reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction showed that 19 of the 20 genes selected for validation confirmed the deregulation indicated by the microarray analysis. The findings define a major oncogenic role for MALAT1, which may offer an attractive novel target for therapeutic intervention in ovarian cancer.