A New Series of Diterpenes from Australian <i>Spongia</i> Species

Great Barrier Reef sponges of the genus Spongia have yielded eight closely related tetracyclic furanoditerpenes. The structures, assigned on the basis of spectral methods, have been confirmed by a single-crystal X-ray analysis of one of the metabolites and the relative stereochemical features have been defined. The absolute configuration of this metabolite was determined by circular dichroism, which allowed the relationship between the eight new compounds to be determined.