Muscadine Research Articles

Compelled to Listen: The Making of an Ethnographer

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] At seven years old I knew it wasn't the time or place to throw off my light-yellow gingham and go charging into the stream, but the swift water looked irresistible on a hot Sunday in the mountains. My shoes were long deposited under a pew somewhere. I perched on a rock and slid my feet into the current, feeling the rush of ice-cold water send a shock up my legs. Momentarily blinded from the reflection of the midday sun, I blocked my face with the back of my hand, looked up the hill toward the white clapboard church, and saw my grandfather leading a line of people down through the grass toward the water. This is how my first memory of being an ethnographer begins. It was the first time I remember seeing through the glaze and straight into the wilderness of my southern home. Many years after that hot mountain Sunday, I was visiting my grandmother as she doddered in the fog of advanced dementia. It was impossible to talk to her about what she ate for breakfast but she could fill the room with detailed stories of Alabama in the 1940s. In a lucid moment, she turned to me and said, Don't wait to write out your life in order as it came. There's a reason people make a pie before putting a chicken in the oven. I could rarely untangle those metaphors, but what follows is an entry in my out-of-order memoir. For much of his career, my grandfather was the pastor of a large, wealthy First Baptist church. Sundays when he preached there swirled in chaos for a little kid weaving through the throngs--the massive crowds gliding across deep red carpet, the perfectly coifed Sunday-go-to-meet air of the ladies with their puffy hair and perfumed snowy skin, and the other kids darting about with smocked dresses or crisp jon-jons. Church seemed like a fancy play everyone put on--an activity, not a practice. After the service, a line would slowly stream out of the large double doors, each congregant shaking my grandfather's hand and thanking him for the message that morning. Sometimes I would stand very close and, as a game, I'd record each face in my mind. A pat on the head or pinch of the cheek, and those swanky men and women would stream out into their workweeks, rematerializing on Wednesday night or Sunday morning. I started to catalog people, crossing them through networks with imaginary strings tied to the thumbtacks of my mind. At retirement, my grandfather began to serve interim shifts to flocks in need--landing him stints at that one-room, North Carolina church with the deep stream out front. The building still sits atop a grassy hill framed by leafy deciduous trees fading up the mountain. That hot day when I sat with my feet in the water, he wore long, black preacher's robes. I squinted through the simmering heat, turning my face up from the water and saw him walking near the creek's bridge and right into the rush, getting the lush velvety edges of his robes all sopping wet. A man in brown dress slacks and a short-sleeved dress shirt walked right in too, with the small crowd bustling on the bank. A woman joined them, her eyes closed and palms lifted toward the one fluffy white cloud perched in the sky above. They both had this anticipation in their eyes; it almost looked like fear. One by one, my grandfather's steady hands submerged their bodies. He held them there for just a bit longer than I expected--momentarily sealed away until he pulled their soaked forms up again. Each rose out vibrant, a look of release shocked out of their system by the wild-cold. They looked shot-through with energy, with some sort of holy spirit. Perhaps their hearts had been changed. I could see the man's undershirt clinging beneath his button-up; the nylons on the woman's legs made the water run in funny paths toward her feet. The memory is too muted to remember much of what was said. But I still see the brilliantly green trees framing the white church, I hear sopranos in cat-eye glasses belting out On Jordan's Stormy Banks, and I smell fried chicken in overflowing Pyrex, perched next to shaky Jell-O molds suspending apple bits and mini-marshmallows. …

Potential of Muscadine Grapes as a Viable Host ofDrosophila suzukii(Diptera: Drosophilidae) in Blueberry-Producing Regions of the Southeastern United States

Spotted wing drosophila, Drosophila suzukii Matsumura (Diptera: Drosophilidae), is an economically important invasive pest of many soft- and thin-skinned fruits in the United States. This pest has recently threatened blueberry production, a multimillion dollar industry in the southeastern United States. Muscadine grapes are often planted in mixed-crop production systems with blueberries. Although D. suzukii can oviposit in intact soft-skinned grapes, it has yet to be investigated whether muscadine grapes, having thicker-skinned berries, can be a viable host. The goal of this study was to assess the potential of muscadine grapes as a viable host of D. suzukii. Choice and no-choice assays were conducted with two muscadine grape varieties to determine the effect of ripeness and wounding of berries on their susceptibility to D. suzukii infestation. Results from the ripeness assays indicate that D. suzukii was unable to complete development to adulthood in unripe muscadine grapes. D. suzukii was able to complete their development in ripe and overripe grapes, although their success rate was significantly lower than in ripe blueberries. In both choice and no-choice wounding assays, wounded grapes had significantly more oviposition and subsequent development to adulthood than intact grapes. Moreover, wounded muscadines were similar to intact blueberries in D. suzukii oviposition, pupation, and adult eclosion. These data suggest that ripe and overripe muscadine grapes, especially when split and wounded by other pests such as birds, can support D. suzukii development and possibly sustain their populations around berry orchards for a longer period of time after blueberry harvest.

Estimation of Leaf Area for Blanc Du Bois Vitis spp., Carlos Vitis rotundifolia, and Southern Home Vitis rotundifolia x Vitis vinifera Using Simple Linear Measurement

Florida hybrid (Vitis spp.) and muscadine (V. rotundifolia Michx.) grape acreage is increasing in the south-eastern United States for the fresh market, wine production, and other diversified products. There is little research on determining leaf area in Muscadine grapes that could be used to assess canopy balance. Previous research on nondestructive methods of assessing canopy leaf area in V. vinifera L. and V. labrusca L. varieties may not apply to V. rotundifolia and Florida hybrid varieties. Thus this research sought to verify the accuracy previous non-destructive methods for V. rotundifolia and Vitis spp. varieties grown in Florida. Linear measurements were taken on fully expanded leaf of ‘Blanc Du Bois’ (Vitis spp.), ‘Carlos’ (V. rotundifolia Michx.) and ‘Southern Home’ (interspecific V. rotundifolia × V. vinifera hybrid). Maximum length and width were used to predict leaf area using linear regressions. For each cultivar, 5 linear regression equations were developed to estimate leaf area using length and width. Length and width were log transformed and an additional 3 linear equations were developed. Equations with the product of length and width had a higher coefficient of determination for all three varieties. Therefore, these equations are recommended for use when conducting non-destructive leaf area measurements of muscadine and Florida hybrid grape varieties.

Damn Yankees!: Demonization and Defiance in the Confederate South by George C. Rable

Reviewed by: Damn Yankees!: Demonization and Defiance in the Confederate South by George C. Rable Paul Quigley (bio) Damn Yankees!: Demonization and Defiance in the Confederate South. By George C. Rable. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015. Pp. 201. Cloth, $38.00.) Writing in her diary in early 1865, a white Georgian named Eliza Frances Andrews unleashed a veritable tirade against the northern enemy. Yankees “thwart all my plans, murder my friends, and make my life miserable,” she wrote. “Yankee, Yankee, is the one detestable word always [End Page 614] ringing in Southern ears. If all the words of hatred in every language under heaven were lumped together into one huge epithet of detestation, they could not tell how I hate Yankees” (95). Among the accomplishments of Damn Yankees! is almost exactly that: to gather together as many words of hatred as possible in order to reveal how Andrews and her fellow white southerners hated Yankees. If nothing else, readers are guaranteed to learn some new and highly creative ways to insult people. Yet Damn Yankees! is so much more than a repository of execrations. It is a masterfully executed work by one of our field’s most accomplished historians, a slim volume with broad implications for how we understand Confederate thought. Rable persuasively shows that language and imagery mattered greatly to the prosecution of the Civil War. They matter in every war. Across the world and through the centuries, as weapons and strategies have evolved, using words to vilify the enemy has been a constant feature of warfare. “Language matters,” Rable explains, “because descriptions of the enemy carry serious and sometimes deadly consequences for all concerned” (3). The more harshly we portray our enemies, the more severely we want to hurt them—and the less we want to reconcile after the fighting is over. These issues are especially consequential in civil conflicts. When fighting against former compatriots, the line demarcating us from them, good from evil, becomes more critical than ever. Confederates expended much ink detailing North-South differences. Sometimes they read those differences back into the past, back into the days of original settlement, when Cavaliers supposedly clustered in the South and Puritans in the North, and sometimes even further back, into the European past. Once one accepted that Yankees were historically a different race, it became easier to define them as subhuman—the type of people who would not only subscribe to dangerous “isms” such as feminism or abolitionism or socialism, but also resort to inhumane means of waging war in the effort to propagate those isms. The result was the frequent dehumanization of northerners in Confederate culture. One need only leaf through the pages of Damn Yankees! to find numerous examples that hover around a fine line between the quaintly amusing and the deeply disturbing. There is the civilian who states, “I rejoice when I hear of their slaughter by the thousands.” And there is the Confederate officer who reports that it was “doing my soul good” to see northerners’ “severed limbs, decapitated bodies, and mutilated remains” (102–4). Language is what justified, even generated, such callousness, and the results were nothing short of horrific. The power of antinorthern invective long outlived the war itself, going on to fuel southern resistance to Reconstruction. After defeat, [End Page 615] one South Carolinian reported, the Yankees “left me one inestimable privilege—to hate ‘em. I git up at half-past four in the morning, and sit up till twelve at night, to hate ‘em” (133). White women appear frequently in Damn Yankees! as key authors and disseminators of anti-Yankee insults. They were also the ultimate victims of Yankee perfidy. When Union soldiers invaded not just southern states but southern homes and bedrooms, they threatened the gender relations that white southerners had placed close to the center of their regional identity. Even the hint of sexual peril—let alone explicit allegations of rape—steeled southern hatred like little else. Little else, that is, except the threat of emancipation. Some of the most enlightening sections of the book emphasize racial disorder as a particularly menacing aspect of the northern threat. Of course, differing attitudes toward racial slavery, in...

Bodies that (Don’t) Matter: Regulating Race on the Toilet in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help

Bodies that (Don’t) Matter: Regulating Race on the Toilet in Kathryn Stockett’s The Help Christopher Lloyd (bio) “I think if God had intended for white people and colored people to be this close together for so much of the day, he would’ve made us color-blind” exclaims Minny, a black maid in Kathryn Stockett’s novel The Help (2010).1 This bestselling drama about domestic servants in 1960s Mississippi (also adapted to film by Tate Taylor in 2011) circles around the proximity of black and white women in the U.S. South. So “close together,” and far from “color-blind,” these women are forced to confront one another’s bodies. The white women of The Help frequently cannot understand or confront blackness, in all its embodied and lived materiality. In attending to the novel’s investment in feces and urination, this article will explore the visceral corporeality represented in Stockett’s novel. The narrative concerns a white southern writer—Miss Skeeter—who, on seeing the daily struggles of the black servants that sustain her domestic world in Jackson, Mississippi, decides to write down the lives of these women. Skeeter thus embarks on a difficult project of interviewing local maids, starting with Aibileen (her friend’s maid) and later talking with many other black women from the town. Eventually, the interviews become a book—Help—that is a bestseller across the nation, especially in Skeeter’s own town of Jackson. Skeeter’s narrative clearly mirrors Stockett’s own, as she is a white woman who was raised in the South by a black woman. She sees the novel as a response to that particular past, a form of both personal and cultural memory. Stockett is certainly not the first white author to represent this key southern relationship: Lillian Smith’s Killers of the Dream (1949) and Ellen Glasgow’s The Woman Within (1954) are memoirs featuring [End Page 259] memories of their “mammies”; more recently, Tony Kushner’s musical Caroline, or Change (2003) connects the lives of a young, white, Jewish gay man and his family’s black maid. The tradition of white writers excavating memories of the South’s reliance on black labor continues into the twenty-first century and is sure not to disappear soon. Literature’s role in the “production of cultural memory,” Astrid Erll tells us, is an “ongoing process, characterized by a dynamic interplay between text and context, the individual and the collective, the social and the medial,” and thus we must attend to the mediation of the southern past in The Help.2 While public responses to the novel and film have been largely positive,3 those in the academy have problematized The Help in a number of ways, most particularly in relation to the representations of race.4 Focusing here on the matter of embodiment and bodily processes, I suggest that Stockett’s novel, through its attention to toilets, feces, and urination, demonstrates the central tensions and disavowals of race relations in the Civil Rights-era South. In his History of Shit, Dominique Laporte suggests that “socialization is regularly subverted by the politics of waste” in that “To touch, even lightly, on the relationship of a subject to his shit, is to modify not only that subject’s relationship to the totality of his body, but his very relationship to the world.”5 Thus, reading The Help’s representations of toileting illuminates the workings of socialization in the segregation-era southern home, workings that the novel dramatizes through distance from and proximity to human waste. I draw on Karl Abraham’s argument that in the psychoanalysis of neurotics, “we are accustomed to find that anal and urethral sensations are closely related to infantile impulses of love,” though these feelings can also develop into sadistic impulses and the release of unbearable unconscious affect.6 Bodily processes are intimately tied to psychic processes. In short, psychoanalytic accounts of bodily procedure augment Laporte’s understanding of socialization and its undoing through waste. Developing a reading of The Help through Abraham’s theories of excretion, Sigmund Freud’s “anal character,” and Sándor Ferenczi’s concept of “hysterical materialization,” I argue that the frequency with...

The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers during Sherman’s March by Lisa Tendrich Frank

Reviewed by: The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers during Sherman’s March by Lisa Tendrich Frank Megan L. Bever (bio) The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers during Sherman’s March. By Lisa Tendrich Frank. (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 2015. Pp. 256. Cloth, $42.50.) In The Civilian War: Confederate Women and Union Soldiers during Sherman’s March, Lisa Tendrich Frank offers a detailed analysis of General [End Page 284] William T. Sherman’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas that puts gender at the center of the interactions between southern white women and northern soldiers. For too long, Frank contends, southern women’s experiences during Sherman’s March have been relegated to the margins as scholars have chosen instead to focus on the methods and limits of Sherman’s destruction. Frank continues the conversation about Sherman’s destruction by positing that his campaign was purposefully gendered and that ideas of femininity profoundly shaped the interactions between soldiers and southern women. Historians know that Sherman brought hard war to the southern home front, destroying Confederate resources and attempting to kill southern civilians’ will to fight. But Frank points out that because most white men served in the Confederate military, “civilian” overwhelmingly meant “women.” From the beginning, Sherman knew his campaign targeted slaveholding women and their homes, and he believed his treatment of southern white women was justified and necessary because he regarded them as enemies who needed to be defeated in order for the Union to win the war. Frank points to Sherman’s Special Field Orders, No. 67—through which Sherman evicted all women from Atlanta—as the most straightforward example of his campaign against female enemies. But she goes further, arguing that Sherman’s comments to his wife demonstrate that the general believed the concept of separate spheres precluded women from supporting the war effort publicly (he disapproved of women actively raising funds at Chicago’s Sanitary Fair of 1865). As Sherman understood it, southern slaveholding women surrendered their claim to feminine protection the moment they entered the public realm to support the Confederacy through their volunteer work. Thus, as his soldiers marched through the South, they targeted elite white women, destroying their household possessions and violating their private spaces, as a central—not peripheral—element of their strategy of subduing the Confederacy. Slaveholding women, for their part, perceived (correctly, in Frank’s view) that they were the focus of Sherman’s soldiers’ attacks. They were appalled when Union soldiers did not provide them the protections they believed should have been afforded to them as elite white women. But when faced with soldiers rifling through their bedrooms and parading around in their clothing, these women—although humiliated and shocked—remained resolutely Confederate. In fact, Frank argues, even as these women dreaded the threat of rape and violation of their homes that surely accompanied Sherman’s inevitable arrival, they found solidarity with each other and became increasingly patriotic. With no southern men to protect them, these women prepared for attack (some by arming themselves) and then [End Page 285] continued about their business of supporting the war effort, including hosting a bazaar in Columbia, South Carolina. Sherman expected these women to capitulate, but Frank argues that just the opposite happened: the more Sherman attacked slaveholding women’s homes, the more loyal to the Confederate cause they became. When discussing slaveholding women’s enduring support for the Confederate cause, Frank contributes to the long-running debate about whether southern white women lost faith in the Confederacy. Scholars such as George C. Rable and Drew Gilpin Faust have argued that Confederate women grew so exhausted by the war that they lost the will to fight for independence.1 Women, in this telling, undermined morale and hastened defeat. Others have challenged these interpretations, pointing out that when it came to Confederate women’s morale, location and class mattered a great deal. Most relevant in this case is Jacqueline Glass Campbell, who argues in When Sherman Marched North from the Sea: Resistance on the Confederate Home Front (2003) that southern white women became more loyal to the Confederacy after encountering Sherman’s army. Frank’s conclusions complement Campbell...

Motive Power: Fans, Punkahs, and Fly Brushes in the Antebellum South

In many elite Southern homes, punkahs, ceiling-mounted fans manipulated by enslaved workers, were an integral part of the architecture of the dining room in the antebellum United States. Paralleling their relationship to American slavery was their use in British India, where the fans had a long history of being powered by low-caste workers. Pushing past the fans’ decorative and utilitarian qualities, this essay examines the devices’ shifting relationship to slavery and freedom through an examination of their operation within the spaces of elite homes. Both planters and their workers benefited, albeit differently, from their interactions with the fans. Elite planters enjoyed the fans’ cooling breezes, insect-free mealtimes, and the opportunity to display their wealth and refinement. Even though they were consigned to labor at the fans, enslaved workers likely used their proximity to elite whites to learn “genteel” codes of behavior, while gleaning information about the plantation world and beyond. The end of slavery did not mark the end of punkahs; rather, the fans were used to celebrate the “noble” history of the Old South while eliding any reference of slavery.

Abstract 2825: Prevention of breast tumor growth by an extract from the muscadine grape

Abstract Grape extracts have garnered attention as chemopreventive agents due their anti-proliferative, anti-inflammatory and anti-oxidant properties. The muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) has a distinct phytochemical composition compared to other grape varieties. The current study examines the preventive effects of a proprietary muscadine grape extract (MGE) on breast cancer formation. The proliferation of actively growing human ER+ or triple negative breast cancer cells was significantly reduced by MGE from grape seeds or skins with an associated decrease in phospho-ERK, suggesting that MGE inhibits breast cancer cell proliferation through a reduction in activation of growth-promoting kinases. Female FVB-Tg(MMTV)NKAMul/J transgenic mice with an activated rat Erbb2 oncogene expressed specifically in the mammary gland (c-neu mice) form mammary tumors by 6-8 months of age. c-Neu mice were treated with MGE in the drinking water (approximately 1.0 mg phenolics/25 g mouse) beginning at weaning and were sacrificed at 7½ months of age. No changes were observed in eating or drinking habits or in gross body, heart or kidney weight, suggesting that the MGE was well tolerated. Although all of the mice developed breast tumors, MGE significantly reduce tumor burden compared to the tumor tissue in mice drinking regular water (9.2±1.2 g versus 3.6±1.4 g, p = 0.001, n = 8-10). A group of c-Neu mice were also sacrificed at 4 months of age, once tumors were palpable, to assess tumor multiplicity. Both tumor burden (1.4±.3 g versus 0.3±0.1 g, p = 0.007) and tumor multiplicity (11.8±2.1 versus 5.1±0.9, p = 0.013, n = 6-11) were reduced in mice treated with MGE. Tumor tissue sections from mice administered MGE had a significant decrease in the proliferation marker Ki67 compared to tumors from control animals [310±92 versus 166±70 immunoreactive cells/field, p = 0.002], in agreement with the reduction in proliferation observed in vitro. Tumor sections from c-neu mice were incubated with an antibody to the endothelial cell marker, CD34, and vessels were identified by a combination of morphology and positive CD34 immunoreactivity; MGE significantly reduced blood vessel density in breast tumor tissue compared to tumors from mice drinking regular water [5.7±0.6 versus 3.6±0.9, p = 0.022], suggesting that the grape extract attenuates tumor angiogenesis. Interstitial tumoral fibrosis was quantified in breast tumor tissue sections using picrosirius red, a nonspecific collagen stain. MGE treatment markedly decreased interstitial fibrosis as compared to the tumors from control animals [2.79±0.70% versus 0.14±0.04%, p = 0.0005], indicating that the extract reduces cancer-associated fibrosis in breast tumors. Taken together, these studies suggest that MGE reduces both breast tumor burden and multiplicity, through decreasing proliferation, angiogenesis and fibrosis, suggesting that extracts from muscadine grapes may represent a novel nutraceutical for the prevention of breast cancer. Citation Format: Patricia E. Gallagher, E. Ann Tallant. Prevention of breast tumor growth by an extract from the muscadine grape. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 2825. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-2825

Abstract 4563: Muscadine grape extract reduces lung carcinogenesis in female mice exposed to 3-methylcholanthrene in utero

Abstract The developing fetus is highly sensitive to the carcinogenic effects of dietary and environmental carcinogens in cigarette smoke, charbroiled foods and air pollution following transplacental exposure. Oxidative metabolism of toxicants by both maternal and fetal tissue causes DNA damage which can ultimately result in the initiation of childhood cancers. Due to the latency of cancer formation, in utero exposure to carcinogens may even predispose the individual to cancers developing later in life. The goal of this study is to determine whether a proprietary muscadine grape extract (MGE) effectively reduces lung tumor formation in the fetus following transplacental exposure to a polycyclic hydrocarbon. The muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia) has a distinct phytochemical composition compared to other grape varieties and limited reports indicate that the extract has potential anti-tumor activity. BALB/c male mice were mated to C57BL/6 female mice to serve as a model for in utero exposure to environmental toxicants. The pregnant mice were treated on the 17th day of gestation by intraperitoneal injection with a 45 mg/kg dose of 3-methylcholanthrene dissolved in olive oil, to induce lung tumors in the fetus. An injection of the olive oil vehicle (0.5 mL/0.35 kg) served as the control. Day 0 was considered as the first day when the vaginal plug was detected. After weaning, cohorts of mice received drinking water alone or water with MGE (approximately 1.0 mg phenolics/25 g mouse) and were sacrificed at 12 months of age. Although all of the mice developed lung tumors, MGE significantly reduced tumor burden in female mice by approximately 48% as compared to the tumor tissue found in control mice drinking regular water (12.4 ± 1.9 g versus 6.5 ± 1.2 g, n = 26-32, p = 0.014). In addition, tumor multiplicity was higher in control mice as compared to MGE-treated animals (6.8 ± 0.4 observed tumors versus 4.2 ± 0.5 observed tumors, n = 26-32, p = 0.0001). Tumor tissue sections from mice administered MGE had a significant decrease in proliferating cell nuclear antigen as compared to tumors from control animals (22.4 ± 1.8 versus 14.2 ± 1.3, p = 0.0009), suggesting that in part MGE reduces tumor burden by decreasing tumor cell proliferation. Lung tumor sections from female mice drinking regular water or MGE were incubated with an antibody to the endothelial cell marker, CD34, and vessels were identified by a combination of morphology and positive CD34 immunoreactivity. MGE significantly reduced blood vessel density in lung tumor tissue as compared to female mice drinking regular water (20.5 ± 2.2 versus 11.3 ± 1.3, p = 0.0012), suggesting that the grape extract inhibits angiogenesis. These results indicate that MGE reduces both tumor proliferation and angiogenesis, leading to a decrease in tumor burden and multiplicity. Thus, MGE may represent a novel nutraceutical for the prevention of lung tumors induced by in utero exposure to environmental toxicants. Citation Format: Brooke E. Porter, Joseph E. Moore, Mark S. Miller, E. Ann Tallant, Patricia E. Gallagher. Muscadine grape extract reduces lung carcinogenesis in female mice exposed to 3-methylcholanthrene in utero. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 4563. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-4563

Strategies for RUN1 Deployment Using RUN2 and REN2 to Manage Grapevine Powdery Mildew Informed by Studies of Race Specificity.

The Toll/interleukin-1 receptor nucleotide-binding site leucine-rich repeat gene, "resistance to Uncinula necator 1" (RUN1), from Vitis rotundifolia was recently identified and confirmed to confer resistance to the grapevine powdery mildew fungus Erysiphe necator (syn. U. necator) in transgenic V. vinifera cultivars. However, sporulating powdery mildew colonies and cleistothecia of the heterothallic pathogen have been found on introgression lines containing the RUN1 locus growing in New York (NY). Two E. necator isolates collected from RUN1 vines were designated NY1-131 and NY1-137 and were used in this study to inform a strategy for durable RUN1 deployment. In order to achieve this, fitness parameters of NY1-131 and NY1-137 were quantified relative to powdery mildew isolates collected from V. rotundifolia and V. vinifera on vines containing alleles of the powdery mildew resistance genes RUN1, RUN2, or REN2. The results clearly demonstrate the race specificity of RUN1, RUN2, and REN2 resistance alleles, all of which exhibit programmed cell death (PCD)-mediated resistance. The NY1 isolates investigated were found to have an intermediate virulence on RUN1 vines, although this may be allele specific, while the Musc4 isolate collected from V. rotundifolia was virulent on all RUN1 vines. Another powdery mildew resistance locus, RUN2, was previously mapped in different V. rotundifolia genotypes, and two alleles (RUN2.1 and RUN2.2) were identified. The RUN2.1 allele was found to provide PCD-mediated resistance to both an NY1 isolate and Musc4. Importantly, REN2 vines were resistant to the NY1 isolates and RUN1REN2 vines combining both genes displayed additional resistance. Based on these results, RUN1-mediated resistance in grapevine may be enhanced by pyramiding with RUN2.1 or REN2; however, naturally occurring isolates in North America display some virulence on vines with these resistance genes. The characterization of additional resistance sources is needed to identify resistance gene combinations that will further enhance durability. For the resistance gene combinations currently available, we recommend using complementary management strategies, including fungicide application, to reduce populations of virulent isolates.

Abstract 4105: Cathepsin L inhibition reverts epithelial mesenchymal transition in prostate and breast cancer cells

Abstract The Epithelial Mesenchymal Transition (EMT) is a key event in tumor migration and invasion processes whereby epithelial cells lose polarity together with cell-cell contacts associated with loss of epithelial markers such as E-cadherin and then undergo a dramatic remodeling of the cytoskeleton associated with expression of mesenchymal markers such as vimentin, as well as increased production of extracellular matrix (ECM)-degrading proteases. Snail is a gene that promotes epithelial mesenchymal transition (EMT) by using its zinc finger domains to bind to target genes that would otherwise stop EMT. Cathepsin L (Cat L) is a cysteine protease involved in cell invasion and has recently been associated with poor prognosis in Colon and Breast Cancer with Cat L being localized in the nucleus. We have shown previously that Snail-mediated EMT can be antagonized by muscadine grape skin extract (MSKE), a natural product rich in anthocyanin. In preliminary data we found that Snail, an inducer of EMT, could up-regulate Cat L activity and expression in breast cancer cells. We hypothesized that antagonizing Cat L activity would lead to mesenchymal epithelial transition (MET). We utilized breast and prostate EMT models to analyze Cat L activity using gelatin zymography and subsequently treated mesenchymal cells with 1μM, 5μM or 20μM Z-FY-CHO (Cat L specific inhibitor) or MSKE for 72 hours. We performed western blot analysis and immunofluorescence for EMT markers as well as invasion and migration assays. Our data indicates that mesenchymal MDA-MB-231 breast cancer cells showed higher Cat L expression and activity as compared to epithelial MCF-7 breast cancer cells. Interestingly, immunofluorescence analysis revealed cells displaying a higher snail expression have an increase in Cathepsin L activity and expression as well as Cat L being localized in the cytoplasm and nucleus. Additionally, mesenchymal breast (MDA-MB-231, MCF-7 cells overexpressing Snail) and prostate (ARCaP-M, ARCaP-E cells overexpressing Snail) cells displayed decreased expression of vimentin and Cat L expression and activity when treated with Z-FY-CHO or MSKE, while E-cadherin increased suggestive of MET. This was associated with decreased cell migration and invasion. We also show for the first time that treatment with MSKE or Z-FY-CHO changes the localization of Cat L from nuclear to cytoplasmic. Based on these results, the inhibition of Cat L could play a role in reverting EMT and preventing tumor progression. Citation Format: Liza J. Burton, Bethany Smith, Manu Platt, Valerie Marah. Cathepsin L inhibition reverts epithelial mesenchymal transition in prostate and breast cancer cells. [abstract]. In: Proceedings of the 106th Annual Meeting of the American Association for Cancer Research; 2015 Apr 18-22; Philadelphia, PA. Philadelphia (PA): AACR; Cancer Res 2015;75(15 Suppl):Abstract nr 4105. doi:10.1158/1538-7445.AM2015-4105

Muscadine grape skin extract can antagonize Snail-cathepsin L-mediated invasion, migration and osteoclastogenesis in prostate and breast cancer cells.

To develop new and effective chemopreventive agents against bone metastasis, we assessed the effects of muscadine grape skin extract (MSKE), whose main bioactive component is anthocyanin, on bone turnover, using prostate and breast cancer cell models overexpressing Snail transcription factor. MSKE has been shown previously to promote apoptosis in prostate cancer cells without affecting normal prostate epithelial cells. Snail is overexpressed in prostate and breast cancer, and is associated with increased invasion, migration and bone turnover/osteoclastogenesis. Cathepsin L (CatL) is a cysteine cathepsin protease that is overexpressed in cancer and involved in bone turnover. Snail overexpression in prostate (LNCaP, ARCaP-E) and breast (MCF-7) cancer cells led to increased CatL expression/activity and phosphorylated STAT-3 (pSTAT-3), compared to Neo vector controls, while the reverse was observed in C4-2 (the aggressive subline of LNCaP) cells with Snail knockdown. Moreover, CatL expression was higher in prostate and breast tumor tissue compared to normal tissue. MSKE decreased Snail and pSTAT3 expression, and abrogated Snail-mediated CatL activity, migration and invasion. Additionally, Snail overexpression promoted osteoclastogenesis, which was significantly inhibited by the MSKE as effectively as Z-FY-CHO, a CatL-specific inhibitor, or osteoprotegerin, a receptor activator of nuclear factor kappa B ligand (RANKL) antagonist. Overall, these novel findings suggest that Snail regulation of CatL may occur via STAT-3 signaling and can be antagonized by MSKE, leading to decreased cell invasion, migration and bone turnover. Therefore, inhibition using a natural product such as MSKE could potentially be a promising bioactive compound for bone metastatic cancer.

Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border ed. by Jonathan Earle and Diana Mutti Burke (review)

Reviewed by: Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border ed. by Jonathan Earle and Diana Mutti Burke Zachary S. Garrison Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri: The Long Civil War on the Border. Ed. Jonathan Earle and Diana Mutti Burke. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2013. ISBN 978-0-7006-1928-3, 360 pp., cloth, $37.50. Born out of a desire to overcome the historiographic border that has long separated Civil War historians in Missouri and Kansas, a group of scholars representing both sides of the divide came together in 2011, with the goal of correcting a persisting myth, namely, “all white Missourians supported slavery and the Confederacy and all Kansans were freedom-loving abolitionists who were victimized by Confederate guerrillas” (2). Organized and edited by Jonathan Earle and Diane Mutti Burke, the fifteen individual essays are presented collectively as Bleeding Kansas, Bleeding Missouri, indicating that blood was spilled on both sides of the border. The essays begin with an introduction by the late Michael Fellman, whose passing not long after the conference is marked in the dedication page. Fellman’s groundbreaking Inside War influenced much of the book’s contents, and his essay, “I Came Not to Bring Peace, but a Sword,” is a powerful introduction to the violence that wreaked havoc along the border. By tracing the western tradition of the Christian war god, Fellman deconstructs America’s sense of Christian mission and duty, demonstrating how both Missourians and Kansans trusted that God was on their side, both fully believing they were “serving God and destroying the devil” (17). From there, the chronology of the essays reveals the conflict’s deep roots, starting with the early presence of slavery on the border. Kristen Epps examines the desire of southern migrants to establish slavery in Missouri and their eventual success despite never adopting the large-scale plantation system associated with the Deep South. But rather than position Kansas as Missouri’s opposite, a land of freedom, Nicole Etcheson explains that pro-slavery forces in the western territory saw themselves as the only legitimate legislative power, fighting tooth and nail against free-state forces. As with the topic of slavery, the goal of this collection is to upend conventional interpretations of the border. Tony R. Mullis outlines how Kansas militia units, initially formed in order to protect against Missouri Border Ruffians, went on the offensive by 1860, leading their own grizzly attacks on slaveholders. Christopher Phillips contends that many Missourians were not rabid secessionists but instead attempted to inhabit neutral ground. Federal occupation, however, drew a sharp line between loyal and disloyal, utilizing an oath of allegiance and curtailing civil liberties “as part of a broader strategy to establish control” (132). And Joseph Beilein Jr. argues that the Civil War was a “clash of divergent concepts of manhood,” and within this context, Missouri guerrillas are better understood as defenders of [End Page 183] southern manhood, protecting hearth and home, which included women, children, and slaves (169). Brent M. S. Campney further flips the traditional narrative by demonstrating that postwar racial violence was not just a phenomenon of the South but also took place in Kansas—the lynching of thirty-three African Americans between 1864 and 1874 serves as stark evidence. Such activity flies in the face of the “free-state narrative” constructed by Kansans in the decades following the end of Reconstruction (227). After Missouri failed to pass the 1865 constitution, leaving freedmen without the right to vote, black leaders immediately organized, pushing back against claims of inferiority. Yet, much like the “free-state narrative,” Jeremy Neely tells of how Missouri guerrillas spent many postwar years defending, and in many ways celebrating, their actions through reunions and veteran meetings. And Aaron Aster’s close study of Lexington, Missouri’s Weekly Caucasian reveals the ways in which a language of white supremacy developed in opposition to Radical Republican rule. The concluding theme of memory, then, makes clear that while reconciliation proved uneven, the gradual understanding that white Kansans and Missourians both favored racial inequality served to reunite the two states and cross the border. One common difficulty in arranging conference paper selections is finding a unifying thread. In...

Novel value‐added uses for sweet potato juice and flour in polyphenol‐ and protein‐enriched functional food ingredients

Blackcurrant, blueberry, and muscadine grape juices were efficiently sorbed, concentrated, and stabilized into dry granular ingredient matrices which combined anti-inflammatory and antioxidant fruit polyphenols with sweet potato functional constituents (carotenoids, vitamins, polyphenols, fibers). Total phenolics were highest in blackcurrant-orange sweet potato ingredient matrices (34.03 mg/g), and lowest in muscadine grape-yellow sweet potato matrices (10.56 mg/g). Similarly, anthocyanins were most concentrated in blackcurrant-fortified orange and yellow sweet potato matrices (5.40 and 6.54 mg/g, respectively). Alternatively, other protein-rich edible matrices (defatted soy flour, light roasted peanut flour, and rice protein concentrate) efficiently captured polyphenols (6.09–9.46 mg/g) and anthocyanins (0.77–1.27 mg/g) from purple-fleshed sweet potato juice, with comparable efficiency. Antioxidant activity correlated well with total phenolic content. All formulated ingredient matrices stabilized and preserved polyphenols for up to 24 weeks, even when stored at 37°C. Complexation with juice-derived polyphenols did not significantly alter protein or carbohydrate profiles of the matrices. Sensory evaluation of the ingredient matrices suggested potential uses for a wide range of functional food products.

Effect of Muscadine Juice and Elderberry Preparations on Wild‐Type H1N1 Influenza Virus‐Induced Cytotoxicity

Elderberry phenolic compounds have been previously shown to be cytoprotective when cells are incubated with H1N1 influenza virus; the current experiments were designed to examine whether similar beneficial effects can be observed with the muscadine grape. Two commercial elderberry products and a concentrated muscadine juice were added to Manin‐Darby canine kidney cells at various time points relative to the addition of 100 pfu H1N1 influenza virus. Oseltamivir (Tamiflu®) was also used as a positive control. After 48 hours, the amount of lactate dehydrogenase released due to cell lysis was employed as the marker for cytotoxicity. All three extracts showed inhibition of cytotoxicity when added to the cells at the same time as the virus at an extract dilution of 1:160; inhibition of cytotoxicity was approximately 50%. A similar pattern of inhibition was observed when the extracts, at a dilution of 1:160, were added to the cells six and twenty‐four hours after viral incubation. When cells were infected with the virus for six hours and, after virus removal, the cells were incubated with the three extracts at a concentration of 40 µg phenolics/ml, cytoprotective activity was also observed. A significant effect was not observed when the experiments were performed by incubating the extracts first and then the virus. Overall, these data suggest that muscadine phenolics act in manner similar to those in the elderberry in providing cytoprotection against the H1N1 virus and this effect can be observed without direct contact between extract and virus.

Identification and Characterization of Tocotrienols in Muscadine Grape Seed Oil and their Inhibitory Effects on Adipogenesis and Inflammation

Tocotrienols are unsaturated forms of vitamin E that accumulate in adipose tissue where they exert potent anti‐adipogenic and anti‐inflammatory effects compared to saturated vitamin E, tocopherols. Tocotrienols have been known to exist in a limited variety of vegetable oils such as rice bran and red palm oil. However, we have recently found that muscadine grape seed oils (MGSOs), byproducts of wine making, contain high levels of α‐ and γ‐tocotrienol. The aim of this study is to determine the efficacy of MGSOs in reducing adipogenesis and inflammation by using primary human adipose‐derived stem cells (hASCs). Differentiating hASCs were treated with MGSOs in comparison with rice bran and olive oil. TG accumulation was significantly lower in MGSOs‐treated hASCs than the other edible oils. A tocotrienols rich fraction (TRF) from MGSOs was prepared by solid phase extraction and used to treat hASCs. The MGSOs‐derived TRF significantly reduced the mRNA and protein expression of genes that are crucial to adipogenesis (e.g., PPARg and aP2). Furthermore, TRF from MGSOs markedly reduced LPS‐induced proinflammatory gene expression and cytokine secretion to the media (IL‐6 and IL‐8). Taken together, our results demonstrated that MGSOs are a significant source for tocotrienols that may attenuate hyperplastic obesity and obesity‐induced adipose inflammation.

Synergistic Effects of Phenolic Mixtures in Human Cell Models of Aging

The health benefits associated with fruit and vegetable consumption are attributed, in the main, to fiber and micronutrients and recent research has focused on the role of phenolics (polyphenols) in mediating healthful dietary effects. While most plants contain complex mixtures of polyphenols, isolated compounds, such as resveratrol, have been widely studied and shown to influence the activity of multiple cellular metabolic and signaling pathways. Indeed, based on its actions on several cellular regulatory systems, resveratrol has been proposed to be the active molecule underlying the benefits of grape and red wine consumption. To test the hypothesis that phenolic mixtures containing resveratrol produce variable and non‐additive effects versus resveratrol alone, their antioxidant capacity (ORAC) and their effects in several in vitro models of cellular aging were compared using identical concentrations (µg phenolics/ml). Compared to resveratrol alone, the same concentration of a mixture of muscadine grape polyphenols plus resveratrol produced synergistic effects on ORAClipophilic but not ORAChydrophilic. Likewise, the phenolic mixture exhibited 10X greater potency versus resveratrol in inhibiting protein glycation. Non‐additive/synergistic effects (p<0.01) of the mixture versus resveratrol on mitochondrial mass, oxygen consumption and gene expression were measured in human skeletal muscle cells. Finally, synergistic effects (p<0.01) of the phenolic mixture in preventing oxidative damage to DNA (COMET assay) were observed in human pancreatic cells. These results suggest that, compared to isolated plant phenolics, the complex mixtures occurring naturally in plants have greater potency to influence various mechanisms of cellular aging.

Application of muscadine grape (Vitis rotundifolia Michx.) pomace extract to reduce carcinogenic acrylamide

Acrylamide is a byproduct of the Maillard reaction and is formed in a variety of heat-treated commercial starchy foods. It is known to be toxic and potentially carcinogenic to humans. Muscadine grape polyphenols and standard phenolic compounds were examined on the reduction of acrylamide in an equimolar asparagine/glucose chemical model, a potato chip model, and a simulated physiological system. Polyphenols were found to significantly reduce acrylamide in the chemical model, with reduced rates higher than 90% at 100μg/ml. In the potato chip model, grape polyphenols reduced the acrylamide level by 60.3% as concentration was increased to 0.1%. However, polyphenols exhibited no acrylamide reduction in the simulated physiological system. Results also indicated no significant correlation between the antioxidant activities of polyphenols and their acrylamide inhibition. This study demonstrated muscadine grape extract can mitigate acrylamide formation in the Maillard reaction, which provides a new value-added application for winery pomace waste.

Simply Necessity?: Agency and Aesthetics in Southern Home Canning

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] In 2008 ethnographic celebration of American county fairs, Drake Hokanson and Carol Kratz pointed to pigs, quilts, and dirty pickup trucks as surefire signs of rural culture. Jars of colorful award-winning preserves also affirmed the vibrant life beyond urban centers: after all, the authors asked, Who in the city makes jelly? Indeed, jars of sweet potato butter, corncob jelly, pickled ramps, and peach-pecan preserves proclaim country pride in venues across the South today. They crowd the shelves of the Museum of Appalachia store in Clinton, Tennessee, and balance in stacks at the Western North Carolina Farmers' Market in Asheville. Farther east, in South Carolina's Lowcountry, the Charleston Farmers' Market offers downtown visitors half-pints of muscadine-apple jam from Grace's Kitchen, and repurposed gas station off the Charleston Highway stocks condiments like sweet tea jelly (from Rina's Kitchen) alongside local barbecue sauces and plates of fresh pie. (1) Yet county fairs and regional gift shops hardly have monopoly home canning displays: preserving food in city dwellings and urban apartments has become hip in the twenty-first century. Liana Krissoff's Canning for New Generation-. Bold, Fresh Flavors for the Modern Pantry (2010) is just one of many recent publications oriented toward novice canners and new canning contexts. The book's roots lie in Krissoff's memories of her parents as they worked to contain the surpluses of their Virginia and Georgia gardens, but it caters to those who associate pickles with curried lentils and sashimi, who would bypass standard peach jam in favor of a small spoonful of fig preserves with port and rosemary alongside wedge of veiny blue cheese and thick slice of dark bread. Krissoff unapologetically promotes the pleasures of home preserving, not least because of its social benefits: jar of marmalade received in the mail can materialize an otherwise-virtual relationship with fellow food blogger, making the connection as tangible as the blueberries spread her morning toast. Upbeat, intimate, practical, and epicurean, Canning for New Generation advocates sensual revival characterized by playful creation and exchange. (2) The same year that Krissoff published her cookbook, Slate columnist Sara Dickerman wrote that preserving at home had become ridiculously trendy, its products mere culinary trophies meant to display an overwrought and morally framed gourmand aesthetic. In the second decade of the millennium, she lamented, canning had shifted from modest, frugal, and routine practice into one overlaid with revivalist fervor that centered the thriftiness, healthfulness, and environmental virtues of marmalades and dilly beans. Dickerman doubted that the production of small-scale fancy condiments constituted meaningful political statement, that project-based preserving could effect significant environmental or economic regeneration, or, she implied, make dent in larger American problems such as hunger or an abusive industrial food system. But another level, her displeasure hung the social and sensory aspects of new-generation efforts, which she characterized as expensive fits of showy industriousness, their products bloggable and boastworthy but ultimately frivolous. In this view, rosemary-infused fig preserves are out of step with historical practice, which focused serious food like unadorned stewed tomatoes or salted green beans--the kind of goods on which you could actually base your diet. As with many food trends, she concluded, today's cultish hobby was yesterday's (3) [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED] Dickerman's is not the only public voice that emphasizes creativity and choice in canning's (urban) present, but compulsion and need in its (rural) past. In 2006, the editors of an oral history project in rural Kentucky observed, These days, some may choose to can and freeze certain products, but in the past, it was necessity. …

Antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of muscadine grape extracts

The objective of this research was to investigate the antioxidant and antimicrobial activities of muscadine grape extracts. Three different cultivars of muscadine grapes including Higgings, Jumbo, and Noble were selected. The skin/pulp and seed parts of three selected muscadine grape cultivars were used for extraction. The total phenolic contents of muscadine grape extracts were expressed as gallic acid equivalents (GAE). The antioxidant activity of muscadine grape extracts were determined by scavenging activity of diphenylpicrylhydrazyl (DPPH) radical and expressed as effective concentration (EC50), which represented the concentration of the extract exhibiting 50% DPPH radical scavenging. The antimicrobial activity against E. coli K12 was determined and expressed as the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC). The seed extracts exhibited greater total phenolic contents than the skin/pulp extracts, ranging from 231.24 to 294.81 mg/mL GAE. The seed extracts exhibited greater antioxidant activities than the skin/pulp extracts (EC50 of Higgins seed extract=0.026 mg/mL). However, the skin/pulp extracts exhibited greater antimicrobial activities than the seed extracts, exhibiting the minimum inhibition concentration (MIC) in Higgins skin/pulp extract (MIC=4.0 mg/mL). This research indicated that the seed part and skin/pulp parts of the muscadine grapes possessed antioxidant activity and antimicrobial activity, respectively. Therefore, it was concluded that muscadine grapes possess the potential to be utilized as functional foods or nutraceuticals.