Inactivation of the retinoblastoma tumor suppressor protein (pRB) contributes to tumorigenesis in a wide variety of cancers. In contrast, the role of the two pRB-related proteins, p130 and p107, in oncogenic transformation is unclear. The LXCXE domain of simian virus 40 large T antigen (TAg) specifically binds to pRB, p107, and p130. We have previously shown that the N terminus and the LXCXE domain of TAg cooperate to alter the phosphorylation state of p130 and p107. Here, we demonstrate that TAg promotes the degradation of p130 and that the N terminus of TAg is required for this activity. The N terminus of TAg has homology to the J domain of the DnaJ family of molecular chaperone proteins. Mutants with mutations in the J-domain homology region of TAg are defective for altering p130 and p107 phosphorylation and for p130 degradation. A heterologous J-domain from a human DnaJ protein can functionally substitute for the N terminus of TAg in the effect on p107 and p130 phosphorylation and p130 stability. We further demonstrate that the J-domain homology region of TAg confers a growth advantage to wild-type mouse embryo fibroblasts (MEFs) but is dispensable in the case of MEFs lacking both p130 and p107. This indicates that p107 and p130 have overlapping growth-suppressing activities whose inactivation is mediated by the J domain of TAg.The retinoblastoma tumor suppressor gene (Rb-1) is mutated in all cases of retinoblastoma and is also frequently mutated in a variety of other cancers (55,91,92). Loss of the antiproliferative activity of the RB protein (pRB) is thought to play a critical role in oncogenic transformation. There are two other members of the RB family of proteins, p107 and p130. These proteins have a high degree of sequence homology to pRB (31,38,56,62). pRB, p107, and p130 share a number of functional properties, including the ability to associate with and negatively regulate members of the E2F family of transcription factors (3,6,8,36,42,78,89) and the ability to induce a G 1 arrest in certain sensitive cell types (16,43,103). The presence of a p130-E2F complex has been proposed to define a quiescent, or G 0 , state of a cell (80). pRB, p107, and p130 are phosphorylated in a cell cycle-dependent manner (2,4,10,21,61,96). Phosphorylation in the mid/late G 1 phase inactivates the growth-suppressive properties of pRB and possibly also of p107 and p130 (15,43,103). pRB, p107, and p130 associate with cyclins (28,30,32,38,47,54,56,78) and are likely to be phosphorylated by cyclin-dependent kinases (cdks). Despite all these similarities, no mutations in p107 or p130 have yet been described in human tumors, and the role of these two proteins in oncogenic transformation remains unclear. pRB appears to be an essential protein in mouse embryonic development, as mice with homozygous deletions of the Rb-1 gene die before birth (14, 46, 52). Moreover, mice heterozygous for Rb-1 develop pituitary tumors with a penetrance of almost 100% (40,45,46). In contrast, mice lacking either p107 or p130 apparently develop norm...