Structural Elucidation of Novel Saponins in the Sea Cucumber Holothuria lessoni

Marine Drugs

Yadollah Bahrami¹  Wei Zhang¹  Tim Chataway² 

[1] Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5042, Australia; E-Mails:;Flinders Proteomics Facility, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5042, Australia; E-Mail:

关键词: sea cucumber viscera;    saponins;    bioactive compounds;    MALDI;    ESI;    mass spectrometry;    HPCPC;    triterpene glycosides;    structure elucidation;    marine invertebrate;    Echinodermata;    holothurian;   

DOI  :  10.3390/md12084439

来源: mdpi

【 摘 要 】

Sea cucumbers are prolific producers of a wide range of bioactive compounds. This study aimed to purify and characterize one class of compound, the saponins, from the viscera of the Australian sea cucumber Holothuria lessoni. The saponins were obtained by ethanolic extraction of the viscera and enriched by a liquid-liquid partition process and adsorption column chromatography. A high performance centrifugal partition chromatography (HPCPC) was applied to the saponin-enriched mixture to obtain saponins with high purity. The resultant purified saponins were profiled using MALDI-MS/MS and ESI-MS/MS which revealed the structure of isomeric saponins to contain multiple aglycones and/or sugar residues. We have elucidated the structure of five novel saponins, Holothurins D/E and Holothurinosides X/Y/Z, along with seven reported triterpene glycosides, including sulfated and non-sulfated saponins containing a range of aglycones and sugar moieties, from the viscera of H. lessoni. The abundance of novel compounds from this species holds promise for biotechnological applications.

【 授权许可】

CC BY   
© 2014 by the authors; licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.