Wiskott–Aldrich syndrome protein family verprolin-homologous protein 1 (WAVE1) has been implicated in cancer cell migration and invasion. We have previously shown that the overexpression of WAVE1 in epithelial ovarian cancer (EOC) tissues is associated with a poor prognosis. However, the mechanism of WAVE1 regulating the malignant behaviors in EOC remains unclear.In the present study, we knocked down WAVE1 expression in SKOV3 and OVCAR-3 cells through RNA interference to detect the cell biology and molecular biology changes. Moreover, western-blot was used to investigate the underlying mechanism of WAVE1 regulating the proliferative and invasive malignant behaviors in ovarian cancer cells.The down-regulation of WAVE1 had a significant effect on cell morphological changes. WAVE1 silencing decreased cell migration, cell invasion, cell adhesion, colony formation and cell proliferation in vitro. In addition, we found that down-regulation of WAVE1 inhibited malignant behaviors in vivo. Furthermore, our study also indicated that the PI3K/AKT and p38MAPK signaling pathways might contribute to WAVE1 promotion of ovarian cancer cell proliferation, migration, and invasion.WAVE1 might promote the proliferative and invasive malignant behaviors through the activation of the PI3K/AKT and p38MAPK signaling pathways in EOC.