The present work aimed to probe into the effect of long non-coding RNA (lncRNA) LINC00152 on gastric cancer (GC) cells proliferation by regulating miR-193a-3p and its target gene MCL1 Transfected si-LINC00152 was used to down-regulate LINC00152, and cells proliferation was measured by the CCK-8 assay. Cell apoptosis and cell cycle were analyzed by flow cytometry. Besides, we also detected the potential functional effects of differential expression of LINC00152 in vivo using nude mouse xenograft model. We overexpressed and down-expressed miR-193a-3p to study the in vitro effect of miR-193a-3p on GC cells proliferation and vitality. And MCL1 was silenced by shRNA to investigate the effect of MCL1 on proliferation of GC cells. In this research, LINC00152 was proven to have a higher expression level in GC tissues than in the adjacent normal tissues. GC cells proliferation was inhibited after LINC00152 was down-regulated. LINC00152 inhibited the expression of miR-193a-3p, which negatively regulated MCL1 In addition, GC cells proliferation was inhibited by cell transfection with shRNA- MCL1 , and enhanced by transfection with miR-193a-3p mimics. Our study suggested that LINC00152 was overexpressed in gastric cancer tissues, and it down-regulated miR-193a-3p to enhance MCL1 expression thereby promoting GC cells proliferation.