No abstract

Last-minute labeling: Mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) were modified with a very short half-life fluorine-18-labeled azide radiotracer by a cycloaddition reaction after the MSNs had reached the tumor site in mice. The tumor could then be visualized successfully with positron emission tomography.

Although protic solvents are generally not preferred for nucleophilic displacement reactions because of their partial positive charge and hydrogen-bonding capacity that solvate the nucleophile and reduce its reactivity, we recently reported a remarkably beneficial effect of using tertiary alcohols as a reaction media for nucleophilic fluorination with alkali metal fluorides, as well as fluorine-18 radiolabeling with [18F]fluoride ion for the preparation of PET radiopharmaceuticals. In this work, we investigate further the influence of the tert-alcohol reaction medium for nucleophilic fluorination with alkali metal fluorides by studying various interactions among tert-alcohols, the alkali metal fluoride (CsF), and the sulfonyloxy substrate. Factors such as hydrogen bonding between CsF and the tert-alcohol solvent, the formation of a tert-alcohol solvated fluoride, and hydrogen bonding between the sulfonate leaving group and the tert-alcohol appear to contribute to the dramatic increase in the rate of the nucleophilic fluorination reaction in the absence of any kind of catalyst. We found that fluorination of 1-(2-mesyloxyethyl)naphthalene (5) and N-5-bromopentanoyl-3,4-dimethoxyaniline (8) with Bu(4)N(+)F(-) in a tert-alcohol afforded the corresponding fluoro products in much higher yield than obtained by the conventional methods using dipolar aprotic solvents. The protic medium also suppresses formation of byproducts, such as alkenes, ethers, and cyclic adducts.

We introduce the high-throughput synthesis of various (18)F-labeled peptide tracers by a straightforward (18)F-labeling protocol based on a chemo-orthogonal strain-promoted alkyne azide cycloaddition (SPAAC) using aza-dibenzocyclootyne-substituted peptides as precursors with (18)F-azide synthon to develop peptide based positron emission tomography (PET) molecular imaging probes. The SPAAC reaction and subsequent chemo-orthogonal purification reaction with azide resin proceeded quickly and selectively under physiologically friendly reaction conditions (i.e., toxic chemical reagents-free, aqueous medium, room temperature, and pH ≈7), and provided four (18)F-labeled tumor targetable bioactive peptides such as cyclic Arg-Gly-Asp (cRGD) peptide, bombesin (BBN), c-Met binding peptide (cMBP), and apoptosis targeting peptide (ApoPep) in high radiochemical yields as direct injectable solutions without any HPLC purification and/or formulation processes. In vitro binding assay and in vivo PET molecular imaging study using the (18)F-labeled cRGD peptide also demonstrated a successful application of our (18)F-labeling protocol.