Isolation of naturally occurring dactylomelane metabolites as Laurencia constituents

Dactylomelol 1, initially isolated from molluscs of the genus Aplysia, was the first example of a monocarbocyclic diterpene skeleton with a C-6-C-11 cyclisation. This paper reports on the identification and structural elucidation of six new diterpenes, compounds 4-9, isolated from specimens of Laurencia sp., together with dactylomelol, all with this particular carbon backbone that we named dactylomelane. This result is the first to confirm a red alga as the biogenetic origin of this class of compounds.