Colon cancer remains the second most common cause of cancer-related death, indicating that a proportion of cancer cells are not eradicated by current therapies. Investigation of the molecular mechanisms involved in the development and progression of the disease will aid in the further understanding of the pathogenesis and progression and offer new targets for effective therapies. In the present study, we initially confirmed that ABCA1 was aberrantly expressed in colon cancer tissues and colon cancer cells. Its overexpression inhibited the proliferation of colon cancer HCT116 cells while silencing of ABCA1 promoted the proliferation and inhibited the apoptosis of colon cancer LDL1 cells. Upregulation of specific miRNAs can contribute to the downregulation of tumor-suppressive genes. Thus, we aimed to ascertain whether ABCA1 is downregulated by overexpression of a specific miRNA in colon cancer. We screened microRNAs that may target ABCA1 by miRanda which is a commonly used prediction algorithm. We found that miR-183 targets the 3'UTR of ABCA1 mRNA. Subsequent experiments confirmed that miR-183 degraded ABCA1 mRNA in the colon cancer cells. Finally, we demonstrated that miR-183 promoted the proliferation and inhibited the apoptosis of colon cancer cells. Thus, we conclude that miR-183 promotes proliferation and inhibits apoptosis by degrading ABCA1 in colon cancer.