Eighteen steroid compounds, including four new steroid glycosides, viz., linckosides L3-L6, along with the previously known nine glycosides and five free polyhydroxysteroids, were iso lated from the starfish Linckia laevigata collected on the Vietnamese coast. New compounds contain the 2 O methyl β D xylopyranosyl unit at the C(3) atom of polyhydroxylated steroidal aglycone. Two of these compounds are monosides, and the other two belong to biosides and have an additional β D xylopyranosyl residue at C(26) in the side chain of the aglycone. The structures of the new compounds were determined by NMR spectroscopy, mainly by 2D NMR, and mass spectrometry.Free polyhydroxylated steroids and related glycosides are the most widespread secondary metabolites of star fishes. These compounds attract interest not only because of their unusual chemical structure but also due to their various biological properties, including embryotoxic, an tifungal, antiviral, antifouling, and other activities. 1,2 In continuation of search for new steroid compounds from starfishes, 3 we studied the steroid composition of the starfish L. laevigata (the order Valvatida, the family Ophiodiasteridae) collected in the Van Phong Bay of the South China Sea on the Vietnamese coast.
Results and DiscussionFractions of steroid compounds were isolated from an ethanolic extract of the starfish L. laevigata by column chromatography on Polychrom 1, silica gel, and Florisil. Four new glycosides, which were called linckosides L3-L6 (1-4), nine previously known glycosides (5-13), and five previously known free polyhydroxysteroids (14-18) were isolated from these fractions by HPLC on semipreparative and analytical Diasfer 110 C18 columns. The results of chromatographic separation of extracted polar steroids are given in Table 1. The known com pounds were identified by comparing the 1 H and 13 C NMR spectra and mass spectra with the data published in the literature.The high resolution (+) ESI TOF mass spectrum of linckoside L3 (1) contains a peak of a pseudomolecular ion [M + Na] + at m/z 665.3898, which corresponds to the molecular formula C 34 H 58 O 11 . The 13 C NMR and DEPT spectra show signals for 34 carbon atoms, among which are signals of six methyl groups, including one methoxy group, nine methylene groups, thirteen methine groups, two quaternary carbon atoms, two carbon atoms that are not bound to protons, and two olefinic carbon atoms, including one carbon atom bound to a proton. The chemi cal shifts of the anomeric proton at δ 4.41 (J = 7.6 Hz), the anomeric carbon atom at δ 104.6, and the carbon atoms bound to the oxygen atoms at δ 77. 5, 76.4, 76.2, 80.5, 83.0, 77.3, 66.1, 84.9, 77.5, 71.2, and 66.8 evi denced that the molecule contains the β pentoside frag ment and the heptasubstituted steroidal core. An analy sis of the NMR spectroscopic data for compound 1 showed that linckoside L3 is structurally similar to echinasteroside C (5), which was isolated for the first time from the starfish Echinaster brasiliensis 4 and contains the analogous ∆ 4 3β...