Transplanting somatic nuclei into Xenopus oocytes that are in first meiotic prophase is an effective way to reprogram them to a multipotent state. On p. 2695,John Gurdon and co-workers reveal that the activation of muscle genes in such nuclei occurs independently of known muscle transcription factors. When the authors injected nuclei from a range of mouse cell types into Xenopusoocytes, they found that muscle gene transcription was activated to almost the same extent as in muscle cells. This transcriptional activation occurred independently of maternally provided MyoD (a myogenic factor) and of protein synthesis, ruling out that myogenic transcription factors were being transcribed and translated from the transplanted nuclei. Interestingly, the transcription of non-muscle lineage genes was also activated. From their findings, the authors conclude that nuclear reprogramming by oocytes is achieved through a different mechanism to that of virus-induced transcription factor overexpression, as used in other reprogramming approaches, perhaps reflecting the activity of a new type of transcriptional control in certain organisms' oocytes.