Abstract
Early studies of the retinoblastoma gene (RB) have uncovered its critical role as a regulator of the G1/S cell cycle phase progression. Surprisingly, genetic approaches in mammals and nematodes have also shown RB controls cell lineage specification and aspects of differentiation. The RB gene product accomplishes this by diverse mechanisms such as by interacting with tissue-specific transcription factors, enhancing RNA interference, and modifying chromatin structure. We review recent studies uncovering novel mechanisms by which RB works in several cell lineages and we provide perspectives on how these new findings might relate to RB tumor suppression.
Original language | English (US) |
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Pages (from-to) | 5268-5276 |
Number of pages | 9 |
Journal | Oncogene |
Volume | 25 |
Issue number | 38 |
DOIs | |
State | Published - Aug 28 2006 |
Keywords
- Cellular differentiation
- Retinoblastoma susceptibility gene
- Tumor suppressor gene
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Molecular Biology
- Genetics
- Cancer Research