Danforth Center Scientist Leads New Department of Energy Grant to Unlock the Secrets of Sorghum Photosynthesis

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March 23, 2026

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(Donald Danforth Plant Science Center) DOE-funded project brings together plant biologists, imaging specialists, and AI experts to engineer more productive, stress-resilient bioenergy crops -- A new five-year grant from the U.S. Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Biological and Environmental Research will fund a multi-institutional effort to improve how sorghum captures and manages energy through photosynthesis. The $5.7-million project is led by Dr. Ru Zhang, Associate Member and Principal Investigator at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center.

The Danforth Center was founded on the premise that fundamental plant science — understanding how plants grow, adapt, and produce energy — is essential to addressing global challenges in food, fuel, and climate. This project takes that premise into the field: by uncovering why sorghum, one of the world's most important bioenergy feedstocks, loses productivity under heat, drought, and fluctuating light, the team aims to generate knowledge that can be translated directly into more resilient, higher-yielding crops.

Sorghum grows at the Danforth
Center’s Field Research Site.

At the heart of the challenge is photosynthesis, the process by which sorghum converts sunlight and carbon dioxide into sugars. This process depends on precise coordination between two distinct leaf cell types: mesophyll and bundle sheath cells. Under stress, that coordination is compromised — and a key hypothesis driving the research is that leaves exposed to high levels of light accumulate excess sugar faster than it can be transported to the rest of the plant, triggering a feedback loop that suppresses photosynthesis, especially during full sunlight conditions in the field.

“Sorghum has remarkable potential as a bioenergy crop, but we still don't fully understand the molecular and cellular rules governing how it manages photosynthesis under challenging field conditions and distributes the sugars its leaves make," said Dr. Zhang. "This project lets us dig into those mechanisms at a systems level — combining field physiology, cell-type-specific molecular analyses, advanced 3D imaging, and AI-driven modeling — so we can identify the precise points to intervene and design plants that are genuinely smarter about regulating photosynthesis and carbon distribution under stress.”

Dr. Ru Zhang, a principal investigator
at the Danforth Center,
will lead a $5.7-million project to better
understand and improve how sorghum
captures and manages energy
through photosynthesis.

Dr. Zhang assembled co-investigators whose expertise spans the full scope of the research: Dr. Tessa Burch-Smith (Danforth Center) on cell-to-cell communication; Dr. Xuehua Zhong (Washington University in St. Louis) on epigenomics; Dr. David Braun (University of Missouri) on carbohydrate partitioning; Dr. Jianlin (Jack) Cheng (University of Missouri) on AI and machine learning; and Dr. Shu-ou Shan (California Institute of Technology) on chaperon proteins with roles in photosynthesis. Field experiments will be conducted at the Danforth Center’s Field Research Site in St. Charles, Missouri. Laboratory analyses will be distributed across partner institutions according to each team’s specialized expertise, with all data ultimately integrated through AI and machine learning.

“Ru’s project is the Danforth Center vision in action — rigorous, collaborative, and consequential,” said Dr. Giles Oldroyd, president of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. “By decoding how sorghum photosynthesizes under real-world stress, this team is laying the scientific foundation for crops that can thrive as our weather grows more unpredictable. That is mission-critical work, and we are proud that it is happening here.”

While focused on sorghum, the insights generated are expected to transfer broadly to similar crops such as maize and sugarcane, and to inform photosynthesis improvement in different kinds of crops such as wheat and rice.

About the Danforth Center
Founded in 1998, the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center is the largest independent nonprofit dedicated to plant science in the world. With a mission to improve the human condition through plant science, the Center conducts plant science research to feed people and improve human health, preserve and renew the environment, and innovate for economic development in the US and around the world. For more information, visit danforthcenter.org READ MORE

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Global Sorghum "Pangenome" Published in Nature Accelerates Discovery of Resilient Crop Traits (Donald Danforth Plant Science Center)

Excerpt from Donald Danforth Plant Science Center: Danforth Center scientists help reveal hidden structural variation tied to domestication, drought adaptation, and a key defense compound

A team of international scientists, including researchers at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, has published a major advance in sorghum genomics in Nature: a powerful new resource designed to speed discovery of traits that help crops thrive under heat, drought, and highly variable growing conditions.

Sorghum is one of the world's most climate-resilient staple crops, relied upon by millions of people in regions where rainfall is unpredictable and farm inputs are limited. But traditional genomics relies on a single "reference" genome, which can miss large DNA differences that influence how plants grow, yield, and respond to stress. To address that gap, the research team built a sorghum pangenome — a collection of 33 genome sequences paired with whole-genome resequencing of 1,984 cultivars and landraces — capturing a far broader view of genetic diversity across the species. The team also produced a more complete and accurate reference map for sorghum DNA, closing gaps that can affect gene mapping and trait discovery.

Using these new resources, the researchers made several key discoveries: uncovering major DNA differences in a domestication gene linked to seed shattering; tracing how gene flow shaped the genetic diversity seen in modern breeding programs; connecting large-scale genomic variation to differences in dhurrin, a natural defense compound with potential links to drought performance; and demonstrating a scalable approach called k-mer-based genotyping to identify complex variants across large populations.

"Breeding progress depends on finding the variants that matter — and finding them across the breadth of genetic diversity in sorghum," said Nadia Shakoor, PhD, Danforth Center principal investigator and a corresponding senior author. "A single reference genome can't capture the structural variation that often drives agronomic traits in a globally diverse crop like sorghum. This pangenome turns that hidden diversity into something researchers and breeders can actually detect, compare, and carry forward — so discovery translates faster into breeding decisions and field performance."

This work was completed through a collaboration spanning multiple international institutions, including key contributions led in Danforth Center laboratories of the late Todd Mockler, PhD, and Nadia Shakoor, PhD. Additional Danforth Center authors include Erica Agnew, Ivan Baxter, Nathaniel Eck, Andrea Eveland, Boubacar Gano, Marie de Gracia Coquerel, and Jocelyn

Saxton.

A representation of the genetic diversity of sorghum. Photo by Nadia Shakoor.

As weather becomes more extreme and resources more constrained, breeders need faster ways to find the genetic variants that influence how crops handle heat, drought, pests, and shifting growing conditions. Many of those variants are large-scale DNA differences that standard approaches miss when relying on a single reference genome. This pangenome — paired with a global resequencing panel — gives researchers a broader, more actionable view of sorghum's genetic diversity, helping move promising discoveries into breeding programs faster.

"Behind every dataset and every genome is a simple goal: help farmers grow food in a harder, hotter, less predictable world," said Giles Oldroyd, PhD, President of the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center. "This pangenome is a better map of sorghum's natural diversity — and better maps help us move faster from discovery to crops that perform in real fields, for real people." READ MORE

Citation
Morris, G. P., Harder, A. M., Healey, A. L., McLaughlin, C. M., Rifkin, J. L., Cruet-Burgos, C., … Shakoor, N., & Lovell, J. T. (2026). A sorghum pangenome reference improves global crop trait discovery. Nature. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-026-10229-9