The de novo methylation activity is essential for embryonic development as well as embryonic stem (ES) cell differentiation, where the intensive and extensive DNA methylation was detected. In this study, we investigated the effects of a demethylating agent, 5-azacytidine (5-AzaC), on differentiated ES cells in order to study the possibility of reversing the differentiation process. We first induced differentiation of ES cells by forming embryoid bodies, and then the cells were treated with 5-AzaC. The cells showed some undifferentiated features such as stem cell-like morphology with unclear cell-to-cell boundary and proliferative responsiveness to LIF. Moreover, 5-AzaC increased the expressions of ES specific markers, SSEA-1, and alkaline phosphatase activity as well as ES specific genes, Oct4, Nanog, and Sox2. We also found that 5-AzaC demethylated the promoter region of H19 gene, a typical methylated gene during embryonic differentiation. These results indicate that 5-AzaC reverses differentiation state of ES cells through its DNA demethylating activity to differentiation related genes. (C) 2004 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.