As the most aggressive type of
skin cancer,
melanoma seriously affects human health. Long noncoding (
lncRNA) 19 has been demonstrated to be involved in the progression of a number of different types of human
cancers. However, the involvement of
lncRNA H19 in
melanoma remains unknown. Therefore, the present study was performed to investigate the roles of H19 in the development and progression of
melanoma. In the present study, 49 patients with
melanoma were included. Expression of
lncRNA H19 in
tumor tissue, adjacent healthy tissue and various cell lines with different treatments was measured by reverse transcription‑quantitative polymerase chain reaction. The effects of H19 knockdown on
melanoma cell proliferation, migration and invasion were detected by cell counting kit‑8, wound‑healing and transwell invasion assays, respectively. In addition, the effects of H19 knockdown on the expression of nuclear factor (NF)‑κB pathway‑associated
proteins were investigated by western blotting. The results revealed that the expression level of H19 was significantly higher in
tumor tissue than in the adjacent healthy tissue of 47 out of 49 patients. H19 knockdown significantly reduced the proliferation, migration and invasion ability of
melanoma cells. H19 knockdown also inactivated the
phosphoinositide 3‑kinase (PI3K)/
protein kinase B (Akt) pathway, which in turn inhibited the activation of the NF‑κB signaling pathway. Thus, downregulation of
lncRNA H19 may inhibit the migration and invasion of
melanoma cells by inactivating the NF‑κB signaling pathway via the inactivation of the PI3K/Akt signaling pathway. The present study provided references for future studies on the pathogenesis of
melanoma and the clinical treatment of this disease.