Mar. Drugs 2014, 12, 4439-4473; doi:10.3390/md12084439 OPEN ACCESS marine drugs ISSN 1660-3397 www.mdpi.com/journal/marinedrugs Article Structure Elucidation of Five Novel Isomeric Saponins from the Viscera of the Sea Cucumber Holothuria lessoni Yadollah Bahrami 1,2,3,4,*, Wei Zhang 1,2,3, Tim Chataway 5 and Chris Franco 1,2,3,* 1 Department of Medical Biotechnology, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5042, Australia; E-Mail:
[email protected] 2 Centre for Marine Bioproducts Development, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5042, Australia 3 Australian Seafood Cooperative Research Centre, Mark Oliphant Building, Science Park, Adelaide SA 5042, Australia 4 Medical Biology Research Center, Kermanshah University of Medical Sciences, Kermanshah 6714415185, Iran 5 Flinders Proteomics Facility, School of Medicine, Flinders University, Adelaide, SA 5042, Australia; E-Mail:
[email protected] * Authors to whom correspondence should be addressed; E-Mails:
[email protected] (Y.B.);
[email protected] (C.F.); Tel.: +61-872-218-563 (Y.B.); Fax: +61-872-218-555 (Y.B. & C.F.); Tel.: +61-872-218-554 (C.F.). Received: 5 June 2014; in revised form: 25 July 2014 / Accepted: 25 July 2014 / Published: 8 August 2014 Abstract: Sea cucumbers are prolific producers of a wide range of bioactive compounds. This study aimed to purify and characterize one class of compound, the saponins, from the viscera of the Australian sea cucumber Holothuria lessoni. The saponins were obtained by ethanolic extraction of the viscera and enriched by a liquid-liquid partition process and adsorption column chromatography.