Abstract: Objective To study the pathogenesis of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and identify potential biomarkers or therapeutic targets. Methods Microarray data (GSE12452 and GSE13597) were downloaded from Gene Expression Omnibus. Processing of original microarray data and screening of differentially expressed genes were performed through bioinformatics analysis. Then, GO and KEGG pathway enrichment analysis was performed for these genes using DAVID database. Real time-PCR and Western blot assay were used to detect the expression levels of the identified genes. Results A total of 260 overlap DEGs were obtained including 16 GO entries and 4 signal pathways. Eighteen potential therapeutic targets that relative to cell cycle were identified by gene enrichment analysis. Expression levels of 12 selected genes were confirmed by real-time PCR. Finally, 4 selected genes were confirmed by Western blot assay. Conclusion By bioinformatics analysis of two sets of microarray data and molecular biology research, four genes were found including CDC6，CDK1，MCM2 and CCNB1, which might be potential key genes that can be developed for therapy targets of NPC in the future

Key words: nasopharyngeal neoplasms, cell cycle, oligonucleotide array sequence analysis, computational biology, nasopharyngeal carcinoma, Gene Expression Omnibus database, DAVID database