MITF and neoplasm: Both microphthalmia-associated transcription factor (MITF) and hepatoma-derived growth factor (HDGF) are considered as apoptosis suppressor genes.30, 31, 32 A large body of evidence indicates that p53 inactivation mainly dependent on upregulation of MDM-4 in tumor.33 In addition, we also identified MITF, HDGF and MDM-4 as target genes of miR-301a-5p by the prediction of miRBASE (http://mirdb.org/cgi-bin/target_detail.cgi?targetID=175447) (Figure 7a).