Summary: | Chemical analysis of a marine sponge, <i>Cacospongia</i> sp. (CMB-03404), obtained during deep sea commercial fishing activities off the southern coast of Australia, yielded an unprecedented family of sesterterpene α-methyl-γ-hydroxybutenolides, cacolides A⁻L (<b>1</b>⁻<b>12</b>), together with biosynthetically related norsesterterpene carboxylic acids, cacolic acids A⁻C (<b>13</b>⁻<b>15</b>). Structures were assigned on the basis of detailed spectroscopic analysis with comparisons to known natural products and biosynthetic considerations. In addition to revealing new chemical diversity, this study provided a valuable platform for comparing and contrasting the capabilities of the traditional dereplication technologies of HPLC-DAD, HPLC-MS and NMR, with those of the emerging HPLC-MS/MS approach known as global natural products social molecular networking (GNPS), as applied to marine sponge sesterterpene tetronic acids.
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