【Objective】To investigate whether IRF5 can inhibit invasion ability of nasopharyngeal carcinoma by re? ducing PARP-1（poly（ADP-ribose）polymerase-1）.【Methods】Forty-six specimens of nasopharyngeal carcinoma and 51 specimens of normal tissue were confirmed by pathologically in this study. The expression of IRF5 and PARP-1 in naso? pharyngeal carcinoma tissues and normal tissues was detected by immunohistochemistry. The IFR5 overexpression plasmid was transfected into the nasopharyngeal carcinoma cell line CNE-2，quantitative PCR and immunoblotting was used to value the expression of IRF5 after transfection. The wound healing and transwell assay was used to investigate the invasion ability. The expression of PARP-1 was valued by quantitative PCR and immunoblotting after over-expression of PFR5.【Results】The results showed that the expression of IRF5 in cancer tissues was lower than that in normal tissues，but the PARP-1 expression was opposite. The IRF5 overexpressing cell line CNE-2/IFR5 was established. The healing rate of CNE-2/IFR5 cells was lower than that of the control cells（P<0.01）. Transwell experiments revealed that the number of CNE-2/IFR5 cells passing through the basement membrane was smaller than that of the control group（P<0.01），suggest? ing that up-regulation of IFR5 could inhibit the invasiveness of nasopharyngeal carcinoma cells. Over-expression of IFR5 led to reduced PARP-1 mRNA and protein（P<0.01）. Besides，elevation of PARP-1 can prevent IRF5-induced changes of invasion ability.【Conclusion】Therefore，we speculated that IRF5 can inhibit invasion ability of nasopharyngeal carci? noma by reducing the expression of PARP-1. This study provided a new target for inhibiting the invasion ability of naso? pharyngeal carcinoma based on IRF5.