Two recent papers provide new insights on transcriptional dynamics and epigenetic remodeling during reprogramming of induced neurons (iNs). Treutlein et al. (2016) applied single-cell transcriptomics to identify routes and detours during early iN induction, while in this issue of Cell Stem Cell, Black et al. (2016) employed gene editing to activate endogenous loci of the reprogramming factors.
