MDM2 and cancer: Furthermore, MIRA analogs prevent unfolding of wild-type and mutant p53, and also restored native wild-type p53 conformation, leading to enhanced DNA-binding activity of mutant p53 (p53R175H and p53R248Q) and increase in mRNA expression of p53 downstream target genes, MDM2 and p21, in several mutant p53-carrying cancer cell lines (31).