Translational regulation of MITF is still an unexplored area with only two peer-reviewed papers (as of 2019) highlighting the importance. During glutamine starvation of melanoma cells ATF4 transcripts increases as well as the translation of the mRNA due to eIF2α phosphorylation. This chain of molecular events leads to two levels of MITF suppression: first, ATF4 protein binds and suppresses MITF transcription and second, eIF2α blocks MITF translation possibly through the inhibition of eIF2B by eIF2α.
MITF can also be directly translationally modified by the RNA helicase DDX3X. The 5 UTR of MITF contains important regulatory elements (IRES) that is recognized, bound and activated by DDX3X. Although, the 5 UTR of MITF only consists of a nucleotide stretch of 123-nt, this region is predicted to fold into energetically favorable RNA secondary structures including multibranched loops and asymmetric bulges that is characteristics of IRES elements. Activation of this cis-regulatory sequences by DDX3X promotes MITF expression in melanoma cells.