Ablation of the Retinoblastoma gene family deregulates G₁ control causing immortalization and increased cell turnover under growth-restricting conditions

The retinoblastoma suppressor pRB belongs to the family of so-called pocket proteins, which also includes p107 and p130. These proteins may functionally overlap in cell cycle control and tumor suppression. We have generated an isogenic set of embryonic stem (ES) cell lines carrying single or compound loss-of-function mutations in the Rb gene family, including a cell line completely devoid of all three pocket proteins. None of the knockout...