Abstract
Introduction
Chromane-type meroterpenoids are a group of natural products consisting of a polyprenyl chain attached to a hydroquinone ring. These metabolites are widely distributed in marine brown algae
1
and particularly abundant in the genus Sargassum (family Sargassaceae).2–7 Up to now, dozens of chromane meroterpenoids have been obtained from the Sargassum algae, some of these chromanes showed a variety of pharmaceutical functions, such as alleviation of inflammatory response, scavenging of free radicals, and inhibition of Na+/K+ ATPase and acetylcholinesterase (AChE).4,8–17 The species S. siliquastrum is frequently encountered in the South-East Asia coastal waters. Previously, antioxidant sargachromanols and analogues have been reported from this species collected in Korea.4–7 In addition, anti-neuroinflammatory meroditerpenoids named sargasilols A–N have been identified by our group from this species of China Sea.18,19 Our continuing interest on the chemical diversity of this specimen led to the isolation of another two previously undescribed chromane-type meroditerpenoids, 9′-deoxysargachromanol E (

Chemical structures of compounds 1–5.
Materials and Methods
General
IR spectra were recorded on an FTIR-850 spectrometer. UV spectra were recorded on a TU 1901 spectrometer. Optical rotations were determined on a PoLAAR 3005 digital polarimeter. NMR spectra (500 or 600 MHz for 1H and 125 or 150 MHz for 13C) were acquired on Bruker Avance Ⅲ NMR spectrometers using tetramethylsilane as an internal standard. (+)-HRESIMS spectra were measured with a Thermo Scientific Q Exactive hybrid quadrupole-Orbitrap mass spectrometer. Column chromatography was performed with Silica gel (200–300 mesh, Qingdao Marine Chemistry Co. Ltd), Sephadex LH-20 (GE Healthcare Biosciences AB), and ODS (50 μm, YMC). Reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) was performed using an Agilent 1100 series instrument equipped with a YMC-Pack C18 (10 μm, 250 × 10 mm) column.
Plant Material
The brown alga Sargassum siliquastrum were collected off the coast of Changdao Island, Yantai, China, in August 2019. The species identification was carried out by one of the authors (Zhongmin Sun). A voucher specimen (SY201901) is deposited at the Laboratory of Marine Natural Products Chemistry, Wenzhou Medical University, China.
Extraction and Isolation
The protocols for the extraction and prefractionation were described in the previous work.
18
The air-dried algal material (540 g) was extracted with 95% EtOH at room temperature. The concentrated extract was partitioned between H2O and EtOAc. Evaporation of EtOAc in vacuo yielded a dark residue of 12.3 g. The EtOAc fraction (12.0 g) was subjected to silica gel vacuum column chromatography, eluted with a stepwise gradient of EtOAc/petroleum ether (PE) (1:15, 1:10, 1:5, 1:3, 1:2, and 1:1), to afford seven fractions (A–G). Fraction C (1.0 g) was separated on a Sephadex LH-20 column, eluting with CH2Cl2/MeOH (1:1), to obtain four fractions (C1–C4). Fraction C3 (670.0 mg) was further separated on a silica gel column, eluting with a stepwise gradient of EtOAc/PE (1:15, 1:10, and 1:5), to afford four fractions (C3a–C3d). Fraction C3c (18.6 mg) was purified by semipreparative HPLC, using MeOH/H2O (75:25) as eluent, to obtain
9′-Deoxysargachromanol E (
1H- and 13C-NMR Spectroscopic Data for 1 and 2 (CDCl3).
600 MHz for 1H and 150 MHz for 13C
500 MHz for 1H and 125 MHz for 13C.
3′,4′-Dihydro-4′-hydroxysargachromanol I (
Cell Culture
Murine BV-2 microglia cells were purchased from Cell Culture Center, Institute of Basic Medical Sciences, Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences. BV-2 cells were cultured at 37°C with 5% CO2, in Dulbecco's modified Eagle's medium (DMEM, Gibco) complemented with 10% (v/v) fetal bovine serum (Gibco) and 1% penicillin (Gibco).
MTT Assay
Cell viability was determined using the 3-(4,5-dimethyl-2-thiazolyl)-2,5-diphenyl-2H-tetrazolium bromide (MTT; 0.5 mg/mL; Sigma) method. BV-2 cells were seeded in 96-well plates and treated with different compounds for 24 h. MTT solution was added and cultured at 37°C for another 4 h. Then, MTT solution was discarded and dimethyl sulfoxide (DMSO, Sigma) was added to dissolve the formazan crystals. The absorbance at 490 nm was determined on a microplate reader (Thermo Fisher Scientific). The cell viability was calculated using the following formula: cell viability (%) = [OD490 (experiment group)/OD490 (control group)] × 100%.
Assay for Inhibition Against Nitric Oxide Production
A previously established protocol 18 was employed. BV-2 cells were seeded in 96-well plates (1 × 104 cells/well) and cultured with or without compounds at different concentrations for 4 h. Then, cells were stimulated with LPS (1 μg/mL) for another 24 h. The NO level in the supernatant was detected using the Griess reaction following the manufacturer's instruction (Nanjing Jiancheng Bioengineering Institute). The absorbance value at 540 nm was determined on a microplate reader (Thermo Fisher Scientific).
Statistical Analysis
All bioassays were replicated for three times. The SPSS 20.0 software was used for statistical analysis. Statistical significances were analyzed using a Student's t-test or one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) for multiple comparisons. P value less than 0.05 (P < 0.05) was considered as statistical significance.
Results
Compound

COSY and HMBC correlations of 1 and 2.
Compound
In addition, three known meroterpenoids were co-isolated and identified as sargachromanols E (
All compounds were assayed for their inhibitory activities against LPS-stimulated inflammation response in murine BV-2 microglial cells.20,21 Prior to the bioassay, the cytotoxic effects of
Discussion
Previous studies have reported tens of chromane meroterpenoids, incuding sargachromanols4–7 and sargasilols,18,19 from the brown alga S. siliquastrum mainly collected in Korea and China. The present study yielded another two previously undescribed chromane meroditerpenoids, 9′-deoxysargachromanol E (
Several previous reports have shown that the marine algae-derived chromane meroterpenoids have significant antioxidant and anti-inflammatory activities.4–7 However, the potential of these chromanes against neuroinflammatory responses is rarely studied, except our recent reports.18,19 The present study is another example showing the anti-neuroinflammatory activities of these chromanes in LPS-induced BV-2 microglia cells. In combination with our previous studies,18,19 the conservative 2,8-dimethylchroman-6-ol scaffold is suggested to be essential for the anti-neuroinflammatory activity, meanwhile, the different polyprenyl chain can affect the activity. This result suggests that the polyprenyl chain can be modified for structural optimization based on chromane scaffold. Since abnormal neuroinflammation has been proved to play a key role in the pathologenesis of various neurodegenerative disorders, such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease, 22 the present findings provide a new perspective on the development of therapeutic agents based on chromane meroterpenoids for the treatments of neurodegenerative disorders.
There are some limitations on this study. First, the stereochemistry of two new compounds
Conclusion
In summary, further phytochemical investigation on the EtOAc-soluble extract of the brown alga S. siliquastrum led to the isolation of another two new chromane meroditerpenoids, 9′-deoxysargachromanol E (
Supplemental Material
sj-docx-1-npx-10.1177_1934578X251321614 - Supplemental material for Two New Chromane Meroditerpenoids with Anti-Neuroinflammatory Potential from a Chinese Collection of the Brown Alga Sargassum siliquastrum
Supplemental material, sj-docx-1-npx-10.1177_1934578X251321614 for Two New Chromane Meroditerpenoids with Anti-Neuroinflammatory Potential from a Chinese Collection of the Brown Alga Sargassum siliquastrum by Junzhi Pan, Huayuan Liu, Xiaofeng Xu, Feijing Lv, Yu Qi, Chaojie Wang, Changle Wu, Zhongmin Sun, Gang Xu and Pengcheng Yan in Natural Product Communications
Footnotes
Acknowledgments
We acknowledge the support received from the Wenzhou Key Laboratory of Research and Transformation of Chinese Medicine.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The authors declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Ethical Approval
Ethical approval is not applicable to this article.
Funding
The authors disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This work was supported by the Jinhua City Science and Technology Project, (grant number 2023-3-061).
Statement of Human and Animal Rights
This article does not contain any studies with human or animal subjects.
Statement of Informed Consent
There are no human subjects in this article and informed consent is not applicable.
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
References
Supplementary Material
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