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