How to render a DS fieldgroup programmatically in a node template?
node_build_content is probably not suitable for your use case. However you should use node_view instead which calls node_build_content anyway but returns you the actual renderable array after it processes it and sends it through an alter as well.

For example:

function mytheme_preprocess_node(&amp;$vars) {
  if (!empty($vars['node'])) {
    $node = $vars['node'];

    if ($node-&gt;type == 'my_content_type') {
      $vars['content'] = node_view($node); //optionally supply view_mode as a second argument
    }
  }
}


Now you can just drupal_render($content) from your node template.