Uncommon Polyoxygenated Sesquiterpenoids from South China Sea Soft Coral Lemnalia flava

A detailed chemical investigation of the Chinese soft coral Lemnalia flava yielded four new nardosinane-type sesquiterpenoids (1-4), one new neolemnane-type sesquiterpenoid (5), and one new sesquiterpenoid with an uncommon 6/9 fused bicyclic skeleton (6), together with two known related compounds (7 and 8). The structures and absolute configurations of 1-8 were determined on the basis of extensive spectroscopic data analyses, X-ray diffraction analysis, chemical reactions, and computer-assisted structural elucidation including C-13 NMR data calculation, residual dipolar coupling based NMR analysis, and time-dependent density functional theoryelectronic circular dichroism calculation. Plausible biogenetic pathways of two uncommon sesquiterpenoids (4 and 6) were proposed.