Six new diterpenoids with anti-inflammatory and cytotoxic activity from Isodon serra

Diterpenoids occupy an important slot of the natural products diversity space with wide ranges of bioactivities and complex structures, providing potential applications for the development of therapeutics. In this study, we reported four new abietane-type diterpenoids viroxocin B-E (1–4), a new totarane-type diterpenoid viroxocin F (5), and a new sempervirane-type diterpenoid viroxocin G (6) along with four known compounds (7–10), isolated and identified from a widely used Traditional Chinese Medicine, Isodon serra (I. serra). Their structures were established by spectroscopic data analysis, experimental and calculated electronic circular dichroism (ECD) data, as well as X-ray diffraction analysis. Compounds 2, 5, 7, 8 and 10 exhibited promising anti-inflammatory activities in lipopolysaccharide (LPS)-induced RAW 267.4 cells, and their inhibition rates on NO production were more than 60% at 10 μM. Compound 7 showed cytotoxicity against human renal cell carcinoma 769P at 20 μM, the inhibition rate was 52.66%.