Overproduction of Rb protein after the G1/S boundary causes G2 arrest

The Rb protein is known to exert its activity at decision points in the G1 phase of the cell cycle. To investigate whether it may also play some role(s) at later points in the cell cycle, we used a system of rapid inducible gene amplification to conditionally overexpress Rb protein during G2 phase. A cell line expressing a temperature-sensitive simian virus 40 large T antigen (T-Ag) was stably transfected with plasmids containing the Rb cDNA linked to the simian virus 40 origin of replication: pRB-wt, pRB-fs, and pRB-Dra, carrying wild-type murine Rb cDNA, a frameshift mutation close to the beginning of the Rb coding region, and a single-amino-acid deletion in the E1A/T-Ag binding pocket, respectively. Numerous independent cell lines were isolated at the nonpermissive temperature; cell lines displaying a high level of episomal amplification of an intact Rb expression cassette following shiftdown to the permissive temperature were chosen for further analysis. Plasmid pRB-fs did not express detectable Rb antigen, while pRB-Dra expressed full-length Rb protein. The Dra mutation has previously been shown to abrogate phosphorylation as well as T-Ag binding. Fluorescence-activated cell sorting (FACS) analysis revealed that cultures induced to overexpress either wild-type or Dra mutant Rb proteins were significantly enriched for cells with a G2 DNA content. Cultures that amplified pRB-fs or rearranged pRB-wt and did not express Rb protein had normal cell cycle profiles. Double-label FACS analysis showed that cells overexpressing Rb or Rb-Dra proteins were uniformly accumulating in G2, whereas cells expressing endogenous levels of Rb were found throughout the cell cycle. These results indicate that Rb protein is interacting with some component(s) of the cell cycle-regulatory machinery during G2 phase.