Pharmacological properties of a marine natural product, stypoldione, obtained from the brown alga Stypopodium zonale

Abstract

Stypoldione (Fig. 1), an ortho-quinone monoalcohol with a molecular weight of 426, is derived from the brown seaweed Stypopodium zonale. It was found as part of a study by Gerwick & Fenical (1981) in which mechanisms of chemical defense against foraging in the marine environment were being elucidated. Living samples of the alga had been observed to be toxic to fish in aquaria, and algal extracts were then investigated using icthyotoxicity as an indication of biological activity. Stypoldione was not the most potent of the compounds extracted from S. zonale, but due to its chemical stability, was chosen as representative of the compounds isolated.