Negative regulatory loop between microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) and notch signaling

Abstract

Melanoma, a melanocyte-origin neoplasm, is a highly metastatic and treatment-resistance cancer. While it is well established that notch signaling activation promotes melanoma progression, little is known about the reciprocal interactions between Notch signaling and melanoma-specific pathways. Here we reveal a negative regulatory loop between Notch signaling and microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF), the central regulator of melanoma progression and the driver of melanoma plasticity. We further demonstrate that Notch signaling activation, in addition to the known competition-based repression mechanism of MITF transcriptional activity, inhibits the transcription of MITF, leading to a decrease in MITF expression. We also found that MITF binds to the promoter of the gene encoding the master regulator of Notch signaling, recombination signal binding protein J kappa (RBPJK), leading to its upregulation. Our findings suggest that, once activated, Notch signaling represses MITF signaling to maintain the melanoma invasiveness and metastatic phenotype.