Upregulation of HMG1 leads to melanoma inhibitory activity expression in malignant melanoma cells and contributes to their malignancy phenotype.

Malignant transformation of melanocytes to melanoma cells closely parallels activation of melanoma inhibitory activity (MIA) expression. We have previously shown that upregulation of MIA occurs on a transcriptional level and involves the highly conserved region (HCR) promoter element. We further observed that the HCR element interacts with the melanoma-associated transcription factor (MATF) and thereby confers strong promoter activation.

Down-regulation of COOH-terminal binding protein expression in malignant melanomas leads to induction of MIA expression.

Malignant transformation of melanocytes to melanoma cells closely parallels activation of MIA expression and involves a promoter region that we referred to previously as a HCR (highly conserved region). The HCR element interacts with the melanoma-associated transcription factor and confers strong activation of the promoter. Furthermore, mutation and deletion studies described in this study revealed that the permissive site for cell-specific promoter activity was located directly 5' to the HCR region.

The extracellular human melanoma inhibitory activity (MIA) protein adopts an SH3 domain-like fold.

Melanoma inhibitory activity (MIA) protein is a clinically valuable marker in patients with malignant melanoma, as enhanced values diagnose metastatic melanoma stages III and IV. Here we show that the recombinant human MIA adopts an SH3 domain-like fold in solution, with two perpendicular, antiparallel, three- and five-stranded beta-sheets. In contrast to known structures with the SH3 domain fold, MIA is a single-domain protein, and contains an additional antiparallel beta-sheet and two disulfide bonds.

Characterization of a transcription factor binding site, specifically activating MIA transcription in melanoma.

We have previously isolated the protein MIA, which is secreted from melanoma cells, and identified highly restricted expression patterns in melanocytic tumors. Preliminary studies of the human MIA gene provided evidence that the promoter is specifically activated in melanoma cells but is silent in nonmelanocytic cells and benign melanocytes. In this study we aimed to identify cis-regulatory promoter elements that mediate promoter activation during malignant transformation of melanocytes.

[MIA ("melanoma inhibitory activity"). Biological functions and clinical relevance in malignant melanoma].

The protein MIA was identified and isolated from the tissue culture supernatant of melanoma cells in vitro by its ability to inhibit thymidine incorporation by melanoma cell lines. After purification and partial sequencing of the peptide, a fragment of the MIA cDNA was cloned by RT-PCR. This cDNA fragment was used to screen phage libraries and subsequently fully encoding human and murine MIA cDNA and genomic DNA clones were obtained.