Extraction, purification, and NMR analysis of terpenes from brown algae

Algal terpenes constitute a wide and well-documented group of marine natural products with structures differing from their terrestrial plant biosynthetic analogues. Amongst macroalgae, brown seaweeds are considered as one of the richest source of biologically and ecologically relevant terpenoids. These metabolites, mostly encountered in algae of the class Phaeophyceae, are mainly diterpenes and meroditerpenes (metabolites of mixed biogenesis characterized by a toluquinol or a toluquinone nucleus linked to a diterpene moiety). In this chapter, we describe analytical processes commonly employed for the isolation and structural characterization of the main terpenoid constituents obtained from organic extracts of brown algae. The successive steps include (1) extraction of lipidic content from algal samples; (2) purification of terpenes by column chromatography and semi-preparative high-performance liquid chromatography; and (3) structure elucidation of the isolated terpenes by means of 1D and 2D nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR). More precisely, we propose a representative methodology which allows the isolation and structural determination of the monocyclic meroditerpene methoxybifurcarenone (MBFC) from the Mediterranean brown alga Cystoseira amentacea var. stricta. This methodology has a large field of applications and can then be extended to terpenes isolated from other species of the family Sargassaceae.