The zygotes of flowering plants undergo asymmetric cell division to produce an apical embryonic cell and a basal extra-embryonic cell that forms the suspensor. Suspensor cells are thought to play a largely supportive role, but have the potential to form embryos under certain conditions, such as stress, mutations (e.g. twin1, twn) and reprogramming (e.g. overexpression of bodenlos, bdl). However, the mechanism behind producing twin seedlings from suspensor cells is not well understood. Now, Sacco de Vries, Dolf Weijers and colleagues employ Arabidopsis to test 12 candidate genes, the ectopic expression of which triggers embryogenesis, to determine the pathway for suspensor-cell reprogramming. The authors show that the ectopic expression of three transgenes (RKD1, RKD4 and WUS) can promote somatic embryogenesis and induce twin seedlings. They use transgenic reporters to identify the sequence of suspensor cell reprogramming in twn mutant, and RKD1 and bdl overexpression lines. First, suspensor cells divide to provide the cells in which reprogramming can occur. The suspensor-derived cells then lose the expression of suspensor-identity markers, such as pATPase, and upregulate expression of DRN, a marker of the somatic embryo. Together, these results show a specific and conserved developmental response to suspensor cell reprogramming.