Abstract
Chemical investigation of the Hainan soft coral Sinularia hirta resulted in the isolation and identification of a library of sixteen structurally diverse terpenoids, including a dinorditerpenoid with an uncommon 17,19-dinorxeniaphyllane skeleton, namely sinuhirtone A (7), six new xeniaphyllane-type diterpenoids (1-6), one new norxeniaphyllanoid (8), two new norcaryophyllene-type sesquiterpenoids (9 and 10), together with six known related compounds (11-16). Compounds 1-3 are three new furanone-containing xeniaphyllane-type diterpenoids. The structures of the new compounds, including their absolute configurations, were determined by extensive spectroscopic analysis and a series of quantum chemical calculations, including quantum mechanical-nuclear magnetic resonance (QM-NMR), time-dependent density functional theory-electronic circular dichroism (TDDFT-ECD), and optical rotatory dispersion (ORD) methods. A plausible biosynthetic connection between new compounds 1-9 was also proposed. New compounds 2-4, 7, and 8 were evaluated for in vitro cytotoxicity against four cancer cell lines.