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. Author manuscript; available in PMC: 2020 Feb 3.
Published in final edited form as: Nat Rev Cancer. 2008 Sep;8(9):671–682. doi: 10.1038/nrc2399

Figure 2 |. Functions of RB that are potentially involved in the prevention of cancer initiation in adult cells.

Figure 2 |

Adult tissues consist of stem cells that are able to produce cycling progenitor cells; these progenitors produce cells that eventually undergo terminal differentiation. In each of these cell types, RB (retinoblastoma) controls distinct cellular processes, which might be partly E2F-dependent and partly E2F-independent, and might involve extensive chromatin remodelling. Loss of RB will have different effects in each cell type. Although the control of the G1–S checkpoint is the most studied function of RB, the abrogation of this function might only be crucial under specific conditions, such as during tumour initiation from cycling progenitor cells.