Documents on the chemical composition of the soft coral Sarcophyton mililatensis are sparse. The present investigation of the Hainan soft coral S. mililatensis resulted in the discovery of six new cembrane diterpenes, sarcoxacyclols A-F (1-6) and four known analogs (7-10). Their structures were elucidated by extensive spectroscopic analysis along with a comparison with the data in current literature. The nonaromatic oxacycles in their structures were the rarely found tetrahydrofuran ether across C-1 and C-12 and tetrahydropyran ether across C-1 and C-11, respectively. Moreover, the absolute configuration of compound 4 was established unambiguously by X-ray diffraction analysis using Ga Kα radiation (λ = 1.34139 Å). Based on the biogenetical consideration, the absolute configurations of other five new compounds were tentatively assumed. Assessment of the bioactivity for these secondary metabolites revealed that compound 1 exhibited significant tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α inhibitory activity (IC50 = 9.5 μmol/L), similar to the positive control dexamethasone (IC50 = 8.7 μmol/L), but no obvious cytotoxicity towards RAW264.7 cells (CC50 > 50 μmol/L). The preliminary molecular docking suggested the crucial roles of the hydroxyl and acetoxyl groups in the computational prediction of the binding mode between the diterpene and the protein.
Keywords: Sarcophyton mililatensis; TNF-α inhibitory; absolute configuration; binding mode; cembrane diterpene; soft coral.