Previous experiments have demonstrated that the regulation of E2F-1 transcription factor activity is critical for the maintenance of normal cell proliferation control. Regulation of E2F-1 is accomplished through at least two mechanisms: posttranslational regulation by binding proteins such as Rb and transcriptional regulation of the E2F-1 gene. The E2F-1 gene promoter has recently been isolated to examine this latter aspect of E2F-1 regulation. Preliminary studies demonstrate that the E2F-1 promoter is under E2F-dependent negative control during the cell growth response, being transcriptionally repressed through E2F sites in G0 and early G1. We now demonstrate that the presence of an E2F DNA-binding complex containing the Rb-related p130 protein (Rb2) correlates with E2F-1 gene repression and that overexpression of p130 inhibits transcription from the E2F-1 promoter. Moreover, D-type cyclin-dependent kinase activity specifically activates the E2F-1 promoter by relieving E2F-mediated repression but is inhibited by coexpression of the cdk4 and cdk6 inhibitor p16 (CDKN2, MTS1, INK4). Taken together, these findings suggest that E2F-1 gene expression is controlled during cell cycle progression by a regulatory network involving at least one oncogene (cyclin D1) and several potential tumor suppressor genes.