As described here, the mediawiki parser allows for a pre-save transform which will automatically replace wikitext with something else.
How do I create my own?
I did find this, but I can't even be sure it's relevant anymore. http://mediawiki.sourcearchive.com/documentation/1.13.3/classArticle_a0d27b9b92f688ea124b1f1c4c0b60018.html
The replacement of the signature is hard-coded in mediawiki/core.
I don't know any way to do the same thing without changing core files (which, btw, isn't a good idea). You could use a parser function or create a tag extension to achieve what you want to do in a similar way.