Tropical Journal of Pharmaceutical Research

Review Article | OPEN ACCESS

Chemical Constituents and Biological Properties of the Marine Soft Coral Nephthea: A Review (Part 2)

Faheem Amir , Yen Chin Koay, Wan Sinn Yam

School of Chemical Sciences, Universiti Sains Malaysia, Penang 11800, Malaysia;

For correspondence:- Faheem Amir Email: faheem.a42@gmail.com

Received: 16 May 2011 Accepted: 11 April 2012 Published: 15 June 2012

Citation: Amir F, Koay YC, Yam WS. Chemical Constituents and Biological Properties of the Marine Soft Coral Nephthea: A Review (Part 2). Trop J Pharm Res 2012; 11(3):499-517 doi: 10.4314/tjpr.v11i3.20

© 2012 The authors.
This is an Open Access article that uses a funding model which does not charge readers or their institutions for access and distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0) and the Budapest Open Access Initiative (http://www.budapestopenaccessinitiative.org/read), which permit unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited..

Abstract

This second part of the review dwells on Nephthea chabrolii and Nephthea Sp. which contain isoketochabrolic acid, ketochabrolic acid, sesquiterpenes, diterpenes and steroids. Corresponding biological activities such as anti-inflammatory and cytotoxic activities have also been observed for the isolated constituents. Most of the new compounds isolated from the genus Nephthea are from N. chabrolii and N. Sp., among which steroids are the most abundant.

Keywords: Marine coral, Acyonaceae, Nephtheidae, Nephthea, Sesquiterpenes, Diterpenes, Steroids