The wewakpeptins, cyclic depsipeptides from a Papua New Guinea collection of the marine cyanobacterium Lyngbya semiplena.

Four new depsipeptides have been isolated from the marine cyanobacterium Lyngbya semiplena collected from Papua New Guinea. The amino and hydroxy acid partial structures of wewakpeptins A-D (1-4) were elucidated through extensive spectroscopic techniques, including HR-FABMS, 1D (1)H and (13)C NMR, as well as 2D COSY, HSQC, HSQC-TOCSY, and HMBC spectra. The sequence of the residues was determined through a combination of multifaceted approaches including ESI-MS/MS, HMBC, ROESY, and a modified 1D HMBC experiment. The absolute stereochemistry of each residue was determined by chiral HPLC and chiral GC-MS methods. The wewakpeptins represent an unusual arrangement of amino and hydroxy acid subunits relative to known cyanobacterial peptides and possess a bis-ester, a 2,2-dimethyl-3-hydroxy-7-octynoic acid (Dhoya) or 2,2-dimethyl-3-hydroxyoctanoic acid (Dhoaa) residue, and a diprolyl group reminiscent of dolastatin 15. Wewakpeptin A and B were the most cytotoxic among these four depsipeptides with an LC(50) of approximately 0.4 muM to both the NCI-H460 human lung tumor and the neuro-2a mouse neuroblastoma cell lines.