On the role of retinoblastoma family proteins in the establishment and maintenance of the epigenetic landscape

RB family members are negative regulators of the cell cycle, involved in numerous biological processes such as cellular senescence, development and differentiation. Disruption of RB family pathways are linked to loss of cell cycle control, cellular immortalization and cancer. RB family, and in particular the most studied member RB/p105, has been considered a tumor suppressor gene by more than three decades, and numerous efforts have been done to understand his molecular activity. However, the epigenetic mechanisms behind Rb‐mediated tumor suppression have been uncovered only in recent years. In this review, the role of RB family members in cancer epigenetics will be discussed. We start with an introduction to epigenomes, chromatin modifications and cancer epigenetics. In order to provide a clear picture of the involvement of RB family in the epigenetic field, we describe the RB family role in the epigenetic landscape dynamics based on the heterochromatin variety involved, facultative or constitutive. We want to stress that, despite dissimilar modulations, RB family is involved in both mammalian varieties of heterochromatin establishment and maintenance and that disruption of RB family pathways drives to alterations of both heterochromatin structures, thus to the global epigenetic landscape. J. Cell. Physiol. 228: 276–284, 2013. © 2012 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.