Sarcodictyon roseum Sarcodictyins

The isolation of sarcodictyin A 42 (Scheme 6.3) began with a stolonifer coral Sarcodictyon roseum collected in 1986 off Cap Bear on the French Mediterranean coast.380 Soon afterwards, a series of sarcodictyins C, D, E and F414 were also found from the same species. Two other soft coral sources of sarcodictyins were later discovered—one from a South African Eleutherobia aurea3S1 and another from Bellonella albiflora378 collected in Southern Japan, which also yielded the (Z) diastereomer of sarcodictyin A. 

The anti-mitotic diterpene Eleutherobin (35) and Sarcodictyins A - D (36a-d) are structurally related, natural compounds isolated from the marine soft coral Eleutherobia spec, and Sarcodictyon roseum,... 

An unusual intraspecific variation in the structures of the diterpene metabolites produced by the soft coral Eleutherobia aurea (formerly Alcyonium aurea) has been observed from several collections of this species made from the Aliwal Shoal and Sodwana Bay regions [95]. The Sodwana Bay specimens yielded antheliatin (106), zahavins A and B (107,108) [96], sarcodictyin A (109) and eleuthosides A and B (110, 111) [95], In addition to 107, other xenicane diterpenes including 9-deacetoxy-14,15-deepoxyxeniculin (112), 7,8-epoxyzahavin A (113) and xeniolide C (114) were isolated from the Aliwal Shoal specimens of E. aurea [97]. Sarcodictyon A and 9-deacetoxy-14,15-deepoxyxeniculin were isolated previously from the stoloniferous octocoral Sarcodictyon roseum [98] and the soft coral Xenia obscuronata [99]. 

D Ambrosio, M., Guerriero, A., and Pietra, R, Isolation from the Mediterranean stoloniferan coral Sarcodictyon roseum, of sarcodictyin C, D, E, and F, novel diterpenoidie alcohols esterified by ( )-or (Z)- A(l)-methylurocanic acid failure of the carbon-skeleton type as a classification criterion, Helv. Chim. Acta, 71, 964, 1988. 

Sarcodictyins A 204 and B 205 are marine-derived diterpenoids with potential anti-cancer properties originally isolated by Pietra et al. from the Mediterranean stoloniferan coral Sarcodictyon roseum These compounds have similarities to Taxol on two fronts First, they are believed to exert their cytotoxic properties through microtubule stabilization, and second, they proved attractive to groups active in the art and science of total synthesis. To date, the groups... 

D Ambrosio M, Guerriero A, Pietra F. Sarcodictyin A and Sarcodictyin B, novel diterpenoidic alcohols esterified by (E)-A(l)-methylurocanic acid. Isolation from the mediterranean stolonifer Sarcodictyon roseum. Helv. Chim. Acta 1987 71 2019-2027. 

Figure 20.50 Sarcodictyins isolated from the Mediterranean stoloniferan Sarcodictyon roseum.

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