Abstract
The sterol components of the Colombian sea urchin Echinometra lucunter were fractionated by high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) and analyzed by gas chromatography-mass spectrometry (GC-MS) and 360 MHZ proton magnetic resonance (1H-NMR) spectroscopy. The sea urchin contains mainly Δ5-C27 sterols with cholesterol as the main constituent. Various Δ5-C26, -C28, and -C29 sterols were also found. This is the first report of the presence of 24§-27-nor-24-methylcholesta-5, 22-dien-3β-ol (2), (22E, 24S)-24-methylcholesta-5, 22-dien-3β-ol (6), 24-methylcholesta-5, 24-dien-3β-ol (7) and 5α-cholestan-3β-ol (13) in sea urchin.
