Histone deacetylation promotes mouse neural induction by restricting Nodal-dependent mesendoderm fate.

Differentiation of embryonic stem cells (ESCs) into neural lineages involves epigenetic changes. Here the authors show that transient histone deacetylation promotes the transition from epiblast stem cells to neural progenitors during mouse ESC differentiation and show that this effect is partly mediated by the restriction of Nodal signalling by histone deacetylase 1.