BackgroundCervical cancer seriously threatens both the health and life of women. We aimed to investigate whether RNA interference of long non‐coding RNA (lncRNA) DCST1‐AS1 could promote miR‐874‐3p expression to affect the proliferation, migration and invasion of cervical cancer cells.MethodsDCST1‐AS1 expression levels in cervical cancer cells and transfection effects were detected by quantitative reverse transcriptase‐polymerase chain reaction analysis. Proliferation, invasion and migration of cells were separately shown by cell‐counting kit‐8, wound healing and transwell assays, and relative protein expression was determined by western blot analysis. Dual‐luciferase reporter and RNA immunoprecipitation assays verified the interaction of DCST1‐AS1 and miR‐874‐3p.ResultsDCST1‐AS1 expression was increased in cervical cancer tissues and cells. The DCST1‐AS1 expression in Hela and SiHa cells was the highest, and so the cells were selected for the next experiment. Inhibition of DCST1‐AS1 suppressed the proliferation, invasion and migration of cervical cancer cells and decreased the expression of KI67, proliferating cell nuclear antigen, matrix metalloproteinase (MMP)‐2 and MMP‐9. miR‐874‐3p expression was increased when cells were transfected with miR‐874‐3p mimic or shRNA‐DCST1‐AS1‐1, and DCST1‐AS1 expression was down‐regulated when cells were transfected with miR‐874‐3p mimic. DCST1‐AS1 can directly target miR‐874‐3p. Furthermore, inhibition of miR‐874‐3p could effectively alleviate the effect of inhibition of DCST1‐AS1 with respect to the proliferation, invasion and migration of cervical cancer cells.ConclusionsInhibition of DCST1‐AS1 suppressed the proliferation, migration and invasion of cervical cancer cells by increasing miR‐874‐3p expression, which could be alleviated by the inhibition of miR‐874‐3p.