Marine bifunctional sphingolipids from the sponge Oceanapia ramsayi.

During the course of our continuing studies on marine natural lipid products,two known sphingolipids have been isolated for the first time from a specimen of the marine sponge Oceanapia ramsayi collected at Itampolo on the west coast of Madagascar in the Indian Ocean. The structures were elucidated using NMR data and by comparison with literature data. The occurrence of these sphingolipids within other Oceanapia spp. is discussed.