Our previous studies have shown that treatment of MCF-7 breast cancer cells with cytokine oncostatin M (OM) results in a growth arrest and a concurrent decrease in p53 expression. It remains to be determined whether these two important events are directly connected, as changes in p53 protein levels can lead to variable biological outcomes. In this study we have generated stable cell lines (MCF7-ptsp53) that express p53Val135 a p53 temperature-sensitive mutant. We demonstrate that overexpression of the wildtype (wt) p53 at permissive temperature in MCF7-ptsp53 cells leads to growth arrest at the G2-M phase of the cell cycle. Inhibition of endogenous p53 function with the expression of mutant p53 protein at non-permissive temperature did not affect the OM-induced G1 cell cycle arrest. Microarray studies were further carried out to identify p53- and OM-regulated genes that mediate the G2/M or G1 cell cycle arrest. We show that the expression of p21 was upregulated and expressions of cdc2, cyclin B2 and protein regulator of cytokinesis 1 (PRC1) were suppressed by overexpression of the wt p53 in MCF7-ptsp53 cells at the permissive temperature. In contrast, OM treatment caused coordinate changes of mRNA expression of several cell cycle components including c/EBPdelta, cdc20, and thymidine kinase 1 (TK1) that mainly affect G1-S phase transition. All together, our results suggest that the downregulation of p53 transcription may be involved in some other cellular changes induced by OM but it is not directly connected to the antiproliferative activity of OM per se.