Biologically active natural products from South African marine invertebrates

Abstract

This thesis describes the chemical and biological investigation of the extracts of six different marine invertebrate organisms collected along the South African coastline. The work on these extracts has resulted in the isolation and structural elucidation of twenty-one previously undescribed secondary metabolites; The history of marine natural product chemistry in South Africa has not previously been reviewed and so a comprehensive review covering the literature from the 1940's up until the end of 1995 is presented here. The marine ascidian Pseudodistoma species collected in the Tsitsikamma Marine Reserve was shown to contain four new unsaturated amino alcohols [47], [48], [49] and [50] which were isolated as their acetyl derivatives. These compounds exhibited strong antimicrobial activity. Four new pyrroloiminoquinone alkaloids, the tsitsikammamines A [90] to D [93],were isolated from a new genus of Latrunculid sponge collected in the Tsitsikamma Marine Reserve. These highly pigmented compounds also possessed strong antimicrobial activity. An investigation of two phenotypic colour variants of the soft coral Capnella thyrsoidea resulted in the isolation of the known steroid 5α-pregna-1, 20-dien-3-one [97] and an additional six new metabolites, 16β-hydroxy-5α-pregna-1 ,20-dien-3-one 16-acetate [98], 3α,16β-dihydroxy-5α-pregna-1, 20-diene 3,16-diacetate [99] and four xenicane diterpenes, the tsitsixenicins A [100] to D [103]. This is the first reported isolation of xenicane diterpenes from the soft coral family Nephtheiidae. Tsitsixenicin A and B showed good anti-inflammatory activity by inhibiting superoxide production in both rabbit and human cell neutrophils. A further four new metabolites were isolated from two soft corals which could only be identified to the genus level and were designated Alcyonium species A and species B. Alcyonium species A was collected in the Tsitsikamma Marine Reserve and yielded two new polyhydroxysterols, cholest-5-ene-3β, 7β, 19-triol 19-acetate [121] and cholest-5,24-diene-3β, 7β, 19-triol 19-acetate [122]. The soft coral Alcyonium species B was collected off Aliwal Shoal and was found to contain two known xenicane diterpenes, 9-deacetoxy-14, 15-deepoxyxeniculin [110] and zahavin A [16], and two new xenicane diterpenes, 7 -epoxyzahavin A [123] and xeniolide C [124]. Compounds [110], [16] and [123] exhibited strong anti-inflammatory activity and compounds [110] and [16] showed good antithrombotic activity. The endemic soft coral A/cyanium fauri collected at Riet Point near Port Alfred yielded the new sesquiterpene hydroquinone rietone [141] in high yierd, fogether with the minor compounds 8'-acetoxyrietone [142] and 8'-desoxyrietone [143]. Rietone exhibited moderate activity in the NCl's in-vitro anti-HIV bioassays