Oxygenated Cembrene Diterpenes from Cytotoxic Sarcoconvolutum A-E.

The soft coral genus contains the enzymatic machinery to synthesize a multitude of cembrene-type diterpenes. Herein, highly oxygenated cembrenoids, sarcoconvolutum A-E (-) were purified and characterized from an ethyl acetate extract of the red sea soft coral, . Compounds were assemblies according to spectroscopic methods including FTIR, 1D- and 2D-NMR as well as HRMS. Metabolite cytotoxicity was tested against lung adenocarcinoma, cervical cancer, and oral-cavity carcinoma (A549, HeLa and HSC-2, respectively). The most cytotoxic compound, () was observed to be active against cell lines A549 and HSC-2 with IC values of 49.70 and 53.17 μM, respectively.