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The retinoblastoma tumor suppressor, RB, assembles multiprotein complexes to mediate cell cycle inhibition. Although many RB binding partners have been suggested to underlie these functions, the validity of these interactions on the behavior of RB complexes in living cells has not been investigated. Here, we studied the dynamic behavior of RB by using green fluorescent protein-RB fusion proteins. Although these proteins were universally nuclear, phosphorylation or oncoprotein binding mediated their active exclusion from the nucleolus. In vivo imaging approaches revealed that RB exists in dynamic equilibrium between a highly mobile and a slower diffusing species, and genetic lesions associated with tumorigenesis increased the fraction of RB in a highly mobile state. The RB complexes dictating cell cycle arrest were surprisingly dynamic and harbored a relatively short residence time on chromatin. In contrast, this rapid exchange was attenuated in cells that are hypersensitive to RB, suggesting that responsiveness may inversely correlate with mobility. The stability of RB dynamics within the cell was additionally modified by the presence and function of critical corepressors. Last, the RB-assembled complexes present in living cells were primarily associated with E2F binding sites in chromatin. In contrast to RB, E2F1 consistently maintained a stable association with E2F sites regardless of cell type. Together, these results elucidate the kinetic framework of RB tumor suppressor action in transcriptional repression and cell cycle regulation.

C-type inactivation in Shaker potassium channels inhibits K+ permeation. The associated structural changes appear to involve the outer region of the pore. Recently, we have shown that C-type inactivation involves a change in the selectivity of the Shaker channel, such that C-type inactivated channels show maintained voltage-sensitive activation and deactivation of Na+ and Li+ currents in K+-free solutions, although they show no measurable ionic currents in physiological solutions. In addition, it appears that the effective block of ion conduction produced by the mutation W434F in the pore region may be associated with permanent C-type inactivation of W434F channels. These conclusions predict that permanently C-type inactivated W434F channels would also show Na+ and Li+ currents (in K+-free solutions) with kinetics similar to those seen in C-type-inactivated Shaker channels. This paper confirms that prediction and demonstrates that activation and deactivation parameters for this mutant can be obtained from macroscopic ionic current measurements. We also show that the prolonged Na+ tail currents typical of C-type inactivated channels involve an equivalent prolongation of the return of gating charge, thus demonstrating that the kinetics of gating charge return in W434F channels can be markedly altered by changes in ionic conditions.

C-type inactivation of Shaker potassium channels involves entry into a state (or states) in which the inactivated channels appear nonconducting in physiological solutions. However, when Shaker channels, from which fast N-type inactivation has been removed by NH2-terminal deletions, are expressed in Xenopus oocytes and evaluated in inside-out patches, complete removal of K+ ions from the internal solution exposes conduction of Na+ and Li+ in C-type inactivated conformational states. The present paper uses this observation to investigate the properties of ion conduction through C-type inactivated channel states, and demonstrates that both activation and deactivation can occur in C-type states, although with slower than normal kinetics. Channels in the C-type states appear "inactivated" (i.e., nonconducting) in physiological solutions due to the summation of two separate effects: first, internal K+ ions prevent Na+ ions from permeating through the channel; second, C-type inactivation greatly reduces the permeability of K+ relative to the permeability of Na+, thus altering the ion selectivity of the channel.