MITF (Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor) is a protein that switches other genes on and off. The public catalogues list it as a drug target and a biomarker, and clinical evidence ties its variants to diagnosis, prognosis or drug response. Tied to Skin cancer, Breast cancer, Ovarian cancer and 2 more. This dossier gathers the 0 products (0 approved), 0 trials, 0 pathways and 0 resistance routes in the corpus that involve it, with external identifiers so it can be joined to UniProt, ChEMBL, Open Targets and the rest of biology.
Biology
Transcription factor that acts as a master regulator of melanocyte survival and differentiation as well as melanosome biogenesis. Binds to M-boxes (5'-TCATGTG-3') and symmetrical DNA sequences (E-boxes) (5'-CACGTG-3') found in the promoter of pigmentation genes, such as tyrosinase (TYR). Involved in the cellular response to amino acid availability by acting downstream of MTOR: in the presence of nutrients, MITF phosphorylation by MTOR promotes its inactivation. Upon starvation or lysosomal stress, inhibition of MTOR induces MITF dephosphorylation, resulting in transcription factor activity. Plays an important role in melanocyte development by regulating the expression of tyrosinase (TYR) and tyrosinase-related protein 1 (TYRP1). Plays a critical role in the differentiation of various cell types, such as neural crest-derived melanocytes, mast cells, osteoclasts and optic cup-derived retinal pigment epithelium. Location: Nucleus; Cytoplasm; Lysosome membrane (UniProt). Locus 3p13 (HGNC).
- Skin cancer: Open Targets association 0.73 with skin cancer (MONDO_0002898)
- Breast cancer: Open Targets association 0.59 with breast cancer (MONDO_0007254)
- Ovarian cancer: Open Targets association 0.56 with ovarian cancer (MONDO_0008170)
- Prostate cancer: Open Targets association 0.51 with prostate cancer (MONDO_0008315)
- Melanoma: Open Targets association 0.75 with melanoma (MONDO_0005105); CIViC evidence names this disease
External identifiers
Built from HGNC, Ensembl, UniProt and ChEMBL idsProducts by modality and phase
Browse products →No product in the corpus is aimed at this target yet.
Trials
Evidence ranking →No trial in the corpus names this target or one of its products.
Resistance routes
Unaddressed routes →The resistance atlas has no route that names this target.
Pathways
Pathway-to-drug matrix →No pathway diagram carries this target as a node.
Companion diagnostics
Assay registry →No companion diagnostic in the registry measures this target.
Preclinical models
All models →No model entry for this target yet; check the cancer entries on the models page.
Open questions
All open questions →No open questions recorded for this target yet. Suggest one.
Literature
Preprints →Query for this target: (TITLE:"MITF" OR ABSTRACT:"MITF" OR TITLE:"melanocyte inducing transcription factor" OR ABSTRACT:"melanocyte inducing transcription factor" OR TITLE:"Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor" OR ABSTRACT:"Microphthalmia-associated transcription factor" OR TITLE:"bHLHe32" OR ABSTRACT:"bHLHe32" OR TITLE:"WS2A" OR ABSTRACT:"WS2A" OR TITLE:"WS2" OR ABSTRACT:"WS2") AND (cancer OR tumor OR tumour OR oncology OR carcinoma OR lymphoma OR leukemia OR leukaemia OR myeloma OR sarcoma OR melanoma OR glioma). Results are unfiltered search hits about MITF, not a curated reading list.
Export
The dossier as machine-readable JSON: identifiers from HGNC, Ensembl, UniProt and ChEMBL, products with status, trials, pathways, hotspots, open questions and assays. The full entity record is in the open API at /api/v1/entities/mitf.json. Licence CC BY-NC 4.0.