Starfish saponins I. 3β-hydroxy-5α-cholesta-8,14-dien-23-one, the major genin from the starfish Echinaster sepositus

✍ Scribed by L. Minale; R. Riccio; F. De Simone; A. Dini; C. Pizza; E. Ramundo

• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1978
• Tongue: French
• Weight: 187 KB
• Volume: 19
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0040-4039
• DOI: 10.1016/s0040-4039(01)94842-7

✦ Synopsis

The occurrence of toxic saponins in starfish has been known since some years ago'. They are cytotoxic, hemolytic, antiviral2 and also induce escape reaction in molluscs3. A number of steroidal aglycones produced by acid hydrolysis of star fish saponins (asterosaponins) have been characterized; all of them possess a 3$,6a-dihydroxy oxidation pattern and the biosynthetically unusual 9(11)-double bona is present in all but two of the aglycones so far identified4. In this paper we report the isolation of the major genin from the starfish Echinaster sepositus and show that it lacks both the 6a-hydroxyl group and the 9(11)-double bona.

Starfishes,collected in November 1977 in the bay of Naples, were extracted by chopping and soaking them in water and the saponins were removed by Amberlite XAD.

2 resin using the improved procedure of Gilgan et a1.5. The crude saponins were -chromatographed on silica gel to give, on elution with methanol, a white solid (0.06% on fresh basis) which was separated by chromatography on Sephadex G-2S into two main fractions. Both showed the same U.V. spectrum with absorption maximum at 1% 250 nm (Elcm 32 and 59, respectively) and, upon acid hydrolysis (HCl in benzene-

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This contribution is part of the Programma finalizzato "Oceanografia e Fondi Marini" C.N.R., Roma.