Title: Terpenenoids from the hainan marine invertebretes: Structure, absolute stereochemistry and biological activities

Biography:

Abstract

Marine benthic invertebretes (Sponges and soft corals etc.) are widely distributed in the coral reefs of the world oceans. Of them, the animals belonging to the genus Sarcophyton (phylum Cnidaria, class Anthozoa, subclass Octocorallia, order Alcyonaceae, family Alcyoniidae) are very prolific and are the intense research subjects for marine natural product chemists. Literature checking revealed that Sarcophyton animals can produce different structural classes of secondary metabolites exhibiting various interesting biological activities ranging from antifouling, anti-inflammatory to cytotoxic activities. Among the metabolites reported, cembrane-type diterpenes are the most frequently encountered. Moreover, biscembranoids, characterized by the complex and highly oxygeneted macrocyclic frameworks, which are formally synthesized from two different cembranoid units via a probable [4+2] Diels-Alder cyclic addition, are unique and typical natural products from soft corals of the genera Sarcophyton. Due to the flexible nature of the macrocycles accompanying with the highly diverse substitution patterns, it has been being a challenging task for their structural, in particular, the absolute stereochemistry, determination by natural product chemists. In this presentation, I’ll present the latest chemical studies and promising bioactivity results on the sarcophyton corals and sponge spongia officinalis collected from South China Sea. All work has been performed in close collaboration with marine biologists and with pharmacologists.