BACKGROUND: Emerging studies of @entity1 pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs) raise new prospects for @entity179 modeling and cell replacement therapies. Therefore, understanding the mechanisms underlying the commitment of neural progenitor cells (NPCs) is important for the application of hPSCs in @entity179 therapies. It has been reported that epigenetic modifications of histones play important roles in neural differentiation, but the exact mechanisms in regulating hPSC differentiation towards NPCs are not fully elucidated. RESULTS: We demonstrated that suppression of histone deacetylases (HDACs) promoted the differentiation of hPSCs towards NPCs. Application of HDAC inhibitors (HDACi) increased the expression of neuroectodermal markers and enhanced the neuroectodermal specification once neural differentiation was initiated, thereby leading to more @entity11408 generation. Similarly, the transcriptome analysis showed that HDACi increased the expression levels of ectodermal markers and triggered the @entity11408 differentiation related pathways, while decreasing the expression levels of endodermal and mesodermal markers. Furthermore, we documented that @entity3997 but not @entity17029 or @entity15687 was the critical regulator participating in @entity11408 differentiation, and knockdown of @entity3997 's cofactor @entity4883 exhibited a similar effect as @entity3997 on @entity11408 generation. CONCLUSIONS: Our study reveals that HDACs, especially @entity3997 , negatively regulate the differentiation of hPSCs towards NPCs at an earlier stage of neural differentiation. Moreover, @entity3997 might function by forming a repressor complex with its cofactor @entity4883 during this process. Thus, our findings uncover an important epigenetic mechanism of @entity3997 in the differentiation of hPSCs towards NPCs.

Suppression of histone deacetylation promotes the differentiation of XXXX pluripotent stem cells towards neural progenitor cells.

@entity1 :: ('9606', 'Species') :: ['human'] @entity15687 :: ('3066', 'Gene') :: ['HDAC2'] @entity3997 :: ('8841', 'Gene') :: ['HDAC3'] @entity179 :: ('MESH:D019636', 'Disease') :: ['neurodegenerative disease'] @entity11408 :: ('MESH:C538339', 'Disease') :: ['NPC'] @entity17029 :: ('3065', 'Gene') :: ['HDAC1'] @entity4883 :: ('9612', 'Gene') :: ['SMRT']
@entity1 :: (9606,Species) :: ['human']
