Neural activity actively regulates muscle gene expression. This regulation is crucial for
specifying muscle functionality and synaptic protein expression. How neural activity is
relayed into nuclei and connected to the muscle transcriptional machinery, however, is not
known. Here we identify the histone deacetylase HDAC4 as the critical linker connecting
neural activity to muscle transcription. We found that HDAC4 is normally concentrated at the
neuromuscular junction (NMJ), where nerve innervates muscle. Remarkably, reduced …