Heliopora coerulea

Blue coral, Heliopora coerulea, has a very different structure, though it is also an octocoral. It has a massive, aragonite skeleton, which takes the form of fingers, or of plates or baffles, according to the water currents in which it grows, forming a large, compact bush shape (Fig. 11.4). It has tiny holes all over the surface, and appears porous, dry... 

Other examples of linear tetrapyrrolic pigments have been encountered in the marine environment. Phycocyanobilin is partly responsible for the blue color of the coral Heliopora coerulea (Cnidaria Hexacorallia see Chapter 20), and Opisthobranch mollusks of the Aplysia genus emit a purplish ink, aplysioviolin, a methyl monoester of phycoerythrobilin whose structure was recently revised (Prota, 1980 Appleton, Babcock, and Copp, 2001 Jongaramruong et al, 2002). The red algae often constitute the majority of the food of these herbivorous mollusks, and we have here a first example (among many others) of a food web. ... 

Svetashev, V.l. and Vysotsldi, M.V. (1998) Patty acids of Heliopora coerulea and chemotaxonomic significance of tetracosapolyenoic acids in coelenterates. Comp. Biochem. Physiol.. 119B, 73-75. 

Tanaka, J., Ogawa, N., Liang, J., Higa, T., and Garcia Gravalos, D. (1993) Helioporins bioactive diterpenes from the blue coral Heliopora coerulea. Tetrahedron, 49,811-822. 

The blue coral, Heliopora coerulea, harvested in Japan has yielded a series of diterpenes with antiviral (herpes simplex type 1, HSVl) and cytotoxic (P-388) activities. The series includes both amphilectanes and seco-amphilec-tanes (helioporin C, Figure 20.59) (seco-amphilectane = serrulatane). The helioporin aglycones are very similar to those of pseudopterosins, but helioporins are not glycosides. 

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