Recent studies indicated that circular RNAs (circRNAs) could play critical roles in the initiation and development of tumors, including tongue squamous cell carcinoma (TSCC). We aimed to investigate the roles and underlying mechanisms of hsa_circ_0001742 in TSCC. In the present study, results reported that the expression of hsa_circ_0001742 was obviously increased and correlated with TSCC patients with advanced clinical stage, lymph-node metastasis. In vitro function assays revealed that hsa_circ_0001742 inhibition decreased the proliferation, invasion, and epithelial-mesenchymal transition (EMT) processes of TSCC cells. Molecular mechanism demonstrated that hsa_circ_0001742 could directly bind to miR-634, which mediated the functions of hsa_circ_0001742 in TSCC tumorigenesis. Furthermore, RAB1A was a target of miR-634 and hsa_circ_0001742 modulated the expression of RABIA through competitively binding to miR-634. Thus, our study showed that hsa_circ_0001742 could promote TSCC progression by targeting miR-634/RABIA pathway. (C) 2019 Published by Elsevier Inc.