Four bioactive new steroids from the soft coral Lobophytum pauciflorum collected in South China Sea

Beilstein J Org Chem. 2022 Apr 8:18:374-380. doi: 10.3762/bjoc.18.42. eCollection 2022.

Abstract

Four new polyhydroxylated steroids lobophysterols E-H (1-4), together with three known compounds (5-7), were isolated from the soft coral Lobophytum pauciflorum collected at Xisha Island, China. The structures of the new compounds were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analysis and comparison with NMR data of structurally related compounds reported in the literature. The absolute configuration of 1-3 was determined by X-ray diffraction. All the compounds have assessed the cytotoxicity against HL-60, K562, and Hela cells. Compound 1 showed weak cytotoxicity against K562 cells with an IC50 value of 19.03 μM. In addition, compound 1 also showed a moderate anti-inflammatory effect in zebrafish.

Keywords: Lobophytum pauciflorum; X-ray diffraction; anti-inflammatory; cytotoxicity; soft coral; steroids.

Grants and funding

This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. U2006204, 41776136, 2181101213, 81991522, and 41876161).