Recent Discovery of Bioactive Natural Products from Taiwanese Marine Invertebrates

The secondary metabolites from Taiwanese marine soft corals and sponges have attracted much attention because they possess considerable potential biological activities. To explore the origin of bioactivity, many cytotoxic natural products were isolated and characterized in the past few years. For examples, The lipophilic extracts from marine sponges Petrosia elastica and Ircinia formosana were found active against several human tumor cells. The investigation of the gorgonian Junceela has also resulted in the discovery of a series of new juncenolides. Bioassay-directed fractionation of Clavularia viridis yielded seven new prostanoids. These compounds have been tested and evaluated as potential antitumor agents. The soft corals of the genus Cespitularia produced novel secondary metabolites with diverse chemical structures and interesting biological activities. Four new norditerpenoids, designated cespitulactones and cespihypotins were isolated from Cespitularia hypotentaculata. Cespitulactones are novel structures having a bond cleavage between C-10 and C-11. In addition, three novel diterpenes were isolated from C. taeniata and designated cespitulactams A, B and C having a phenylethyl amino side chain.