Investigation into the highly conserved 14‑3‑3ε protein has become increasingly important in cell biology due to its involvement in cell survival signaling, cell cycle control and apoptosis. The 14‑3‑3ε protein has been found to exert an impact on the development of various tumor types. However, the functional role and the possible mechanism of 14‑3‑3ε in gastric cancer remains to be elucidated. A previous study by our group indicated a negative correlation between 14‑3‑3ε expression levels and gastric cancer tissue differentiation and a positive correlation between 14‑3‑3ε expression levels and tumor infiltration, lymph node metastasis and tumor, nodes and metastasis staging. In the present study, 14‑3‑3ε suppression in the SGC7901 gastric cancer cell line was demonstrated to inhibit cell proliferation in vitro and tumor growth in vivo and the cell cycle‑associated proteins cyclin E and p27kip1 may have contributed to this antitumor effect. The present study showed for the first time that reducing the expression of 14‑3‑3ε may inhibit the proliferation and progression of gastric cancer and inhibition of this protein may provide a potential strategy for gastric cancer therapy in the future.