Abstract
The combination of liquid chromatography coupled to high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRESMS)-based dereplication and antiproliferative activity-guided fractionation was applied on the Red Sea-derived soft coral
sp. This approach facilitated the isolation of five new cembrane-type diterpenoids (
-
), along with two known analogs (
and
), as well as the identification of 19 further, known compounds. The chemical structures of the new compounds were elucidated while using comprehensive spectroscopic analyses, including one-dimensional (1D) and two-dimensional (2D) NMR and HRMS. All of the isolated cembranoids (
-
) showed moderate
antiproliferative activity against a human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7), with IC
ranging from 22.39-27.12 µg/mL. This class of compounds could thus serve as scaffold for the future design of anticancer leads.