Abstract: Effects of Scriptaid (SCR), low toxicity Histone Deacetylase inhibitors (HDACi) on the histone acetylation and development of porcine Somatic Cell Nuclear Transfer (SCNT) embryos were examined in this study. Treatment of activated reconstructed SCNT embryos with 500 nM SCR for 12 h resulted in a significantly increase in the blastocyst development compared to untreated group (21.0 vs 9.7%, p<0.05). Further, SCR treatment resulted in SCNT embryos at the 2, 4-cells and blastocyst stage with higher acetylation level of H3K18 in comparison with untreated group and similar to fertilized counterparts. Measurement of four selected developmentally important genes (HDAC2, HAT1, OCT4 and Phosphoglycerate Kinase 1 (PGK1)) in blastocysts showed that treatment of SCNT embryos with SCR resulted in an increase expression in HAT1 and decrease expression in HDAC2 and PGK1. A similar expression profile of these genes was found in blastocysts developed from SCR treated SCNT embryos and In Vitro Fertilization (IVF) embryos. These results suggest that SCR treatment can improve the development competence of porcine SCNT embryos and result in a similar expression pattern of genes related to histone acetylation and acetylation level of histone compared to IVF embryos.