Publikation: Litoarbolide A: An undescribed sesquiterpenoid from the Red Sea Soft Coral Litophyton arboreum with an in vitro anti-malarial activity evaluation

Das Lehrgebiet ist Co-Autor bei einer Publikation zum Thema "Litoarbolide A: An undescribed sesquiterpenoid from the Red Sea Soft Coral Litophyton arboreum with an in vitro anti-malarial activity evaluation" in der Zeitschrift Natural Product Research.

Soft corals distributed across the Red Sea coasts are a rich source of diverse and bioactive natural products. Chemical probing of the Red Sea soft coral Litophyton arboreum led to isolation and structural characterization of an undescribed sesquiterpenoid, litoarbolide A (1), along with 14 previously reported metabolites (2-15). The chemical structures of the isolates were assigned based on NMR as well as high resolution electrospray ionization mass spectrometry (HR-ESI-MS) data. Litoarbolide A is supposed to be the biosynthetic precursor to other sesquiterpenoids, which formed via further post-translational modifications. Furthermore, these metabolites were evaluated for anti-malarial activity, where only the acyclic sesquiterpenoid of a sec-germacrane nucleus (7) showed an activity against chloroquine-sensitive (D6) and chloroquine-resistant (W2) strains of Plasmodium falciparum with IC₅₀ at 3.7 and 2.2 mg/mL, respectively. Moreover, the isolated metabolites were all non-toxic to the Vero cell line. These findings support the consideration of L. arboreum in further natural anti-malarial studies.

M. M.A. Ahmed, E. A. Ragab, A. Zayed, E. M. El-Ghaly, S. K. Ismail, S. I. Khan, Z. Ali, A. G. Chittiboyina, I. A. Khan; Litoarbolide A: An undescribed sesquiterpenoid from the Red Sea Soft Coral Litophyton arboreum with an in vitro anti-malarial activity evaluation. Nat. Prod. Res. 2022, In Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/14786419.2022.2071268