While targeting experiments carried out on the genes encoding many cell cycle regulators have challenged our views of cell cycle control, they also suggest that redundancy might not be the only explanation for the observed perplexing phenotypes. Indeed, several observations hint at functions of cyclins and CDK inhibitors that cannot be accounted for by their sole role as kinase regulators. They are found involved in many cellular transactions, depending or not on CDKs that are not directly linked to cell cycle control, but participating to general mechanisms such as transcription, DNA repair or cytoskeleton dynamics. In this review we discuss the roles that these alternative functions might have in cancer cell proliferation and migration that sometime even challenge their definition as proliferation markers.
Keywords: EMT; Rho GTPases; cytoskeleton; invasion; mitosis; transcription.