New farnesylhydroquinone glycosides from the gorgonian Euplexaura anastomosans

Enzyme Inhibitors from Gorgonians and Soft Corals

For decades, gorgonians and soft corals have been considered promising sources of bioactive compounds, attracting the interest of scientists from different fields. As the most abundant bioactive compounds within these organisms, terpenoids, steroids, and alkaloids have received the highest coverage in the scientific literature. However, enzyme inhibitors, a functional class of bioactive compounds with high potential for industry and biomedicine, have received much less notoriety. Thus, we revised scientific literature (1974-2022) on the field of marine natural products searching for enzyme inhibitors isolated from these taxonomic groups. In this review, we present representative enzyme inhibitors from an enzymological perspective, highlighting, when available, data on specific targets, structures, potencies, mechanisms of inhibition, and physiological roles for these molecules. As most of the characterization studies for the new inhibitors remain incomplete, we also included a methodological section presenting a general strategy to face this goal by accomplishing STRENDA (Standards for Reporting Enzymology Data) project guidelines.

Natural product chemistry of gorgonian corals of the family Plexauridae distributed in the Indo-Pacific Ocean

The structures, names, bioactivities and references of 105 natural products obtained from gorgonian corals belonging to the family Plexauridae with an Indo-Pacific distribution are described in this review. All compounds mentioned in this review were obtained from gorgonian corals belonging to the genera Astrogorgia, Bebryce, Echinomuricea, Euplexaura and Menella.

Stereoselective single-step synthesis and X-ray crystallographic investigation of acetylated aryl 1,2-trans glycopyranosides and aryl 1,2-cis C2-hydroxy-glycopyranosides

Reported is an attractive and environmentally friendly method for the synthesis of the title compounds in moderate yield using inexpensive 1,2,3,4,6-penta-O-acetyl-beta-D-gluco- and galactopyranoses as sugar donors, five different phenols as acceptors and H-beta zeolite as the catalyst. The yield (23-28%) of aryl 3,4,6-tri-O-acetyl-alpha-D-glycopyranosides obtained in this single-step procedure is considerably higher than that obtained using previously reported methods. Treatment of an orthoacetate, 3,4,6-tri-O-acetyl-[1,2-O-(1-p-fluorophenoxyethylidene)]-alpha-D-glucopyranose, with p-fluorophenol under the same solvent-free reaction conditions also led to the formation of the title compounds in similar yield and composition. X-ray crystallographic analysis of phenyl 3,4,6-tri-O-acetyl-alpha-D-glucopyranoside and p-fluorophenyl 3,4,6-tri-O-acetyl-alpha-D-glucopyranoside showed that the molecular packing is stabilized by C-H...O, C-H...pi and C-H...F interactions, in addition to regular hydrogen bonding patterns.

A radical scavenging farnesylhydroquinone from a marine-derived fungus Penicillium sp

Farnesylhydroquinone (1) has been isolated from the mycelium of a marine-derived fungus of the genus Penicillium. The structure of the compound (1) has been elucidated by spectral method. The compound 1 exhibits potent radical scavenging activity (IC50 12.5 microM) against the DPPH.