Sesquiterpene constituents from the soft coral Sinularia nanolobata

Abstract

Using various chromatographic separations, four sesquiterpenes (1–4), including two new compounds, nanolobatols A and B (1 and 2), were isolated from the Vietnamese soft coral Sinularia nanolobata. Their structures were determined on the basis of spectroscopic data (¹H and ¹³C NMR, HSQC, HMBC, ¹H–¹H COSY, NOESY and FT-ICR-MS) and by comparison with the literature values. The cytotoxic activity of isolated compounds against a panel of eight human cancer cell lines was also evaluated.

Keywords:

• Sinularia nanolobata
• Alcyoniidae
• soft coral
• sesquiterpene

Acknowledgements

The authors are grateful to the Institute of Chemistry, VAST for measurement of the NMR and mass spectra; Dr Do Thi Thao, Institute of Biotechnology, VAST for the cytotoxicity evaluation; and Dr Bui Huu Tai, Institute of Marine Biochemistry, VAST for measurement of the CD spectra.