Cytotoxic diterpenoids from the soft coral Sarcophyton crassocaule.

Five new cembrane diterpenoids, sarcrassins A-E (1-5) along with a known compound, emblide ( 6), have been isolated from the soft coral Sarcophyton crassocaule collected from the Bay of Sanya, Hainan Island, China. The structures of 1-5 were determined by spectroscopic methods including 1D and 2D NMR techniques. Their relative configurations were determined by NMR data and NOESY experiments. Compounds 2, 4, and 6 exhibited significant cytotoxic activities against KB cell lines with IC50 values of 5.0, 4.0, and 5.0 mu g/mL, respectively, while compounds 1 and 5 showed moderate cytotoxicity toward KB cell lines with IC50 values of 19.0 and 13.0 mu g/mL, respectively.