The retinoblastoma protein (RB) plays an important role in growth suppression through the formation of multiple protein complexes with its target proteins using A/B and C pockets. Even though the A/B and C pockets co-operate for growth suppression, the function of RB in growth arrest is inhibited by the coexpression of RB C fragments with full length RB in the absence of p53, which implies that C pocket fragments are likely to act as a dominant-negative inhibitor of RB function. In contrast, the loss of the RB functions in the presence of p53 triggers a cell cycle arrest or apoptosis by p53-dependent pathways. Thus, it still remains to be elucidated whether the expression of RB C pocket fragments in the presence of p53 induces delayed cell cycle progression and sensitizes cells to apoptosis through p53-dependent pathways. Our results show that the expression of RB C pocket fragments not only induces delayed cell cycle progression, which is mediated by the down-regulation of cyclin A, cyclin E, and E2F-1, but also sensitizes cells to apoptosis through p53-dependent pathways.