Facile aromatic radiofluorination of [18F]flumazenil from diaryliodonium salts with evaluation of their stability and selectivity

Org Biomol Chem. 2011 Dec 21;9(24):8346-55. doi: 10.1039/c1ob06277h. Epub 2011 Nov 7.

Abstract

Aromatic radiofluorination of the diaryliodonium tosylate precursor with [(18)F]fluoride ions has been applied successfully to access [(18)F]flumazenil in high radiochemical yields of 67.2 ± 2.7% (decay corrected). The stability and reactivity of the diaryliodonium tosylate precursor plays a key role in increasing the production of (18)F-labelled molecules under the fluorine-18 labelling condition. Various conditions were explored for the preparation of [(18)F]flumazenil from different diaryliodonium tosylate precursors. Optimum incorporation of [(18)F]fluoride ions in the 4-methylphenyl-mazenil iodonium tosylate precursor (5f) was achieved at 150 °C for 5 min by utilizing 4 mg of the precursor, K(2.2.2)/K(2)CO(3) complex, and the radical scavenger in N,N-dimethylformamide. This approach was extended to a viable method for use in automated synthesis with a radiochemical yield of 63.5 ± 3.2% (decay corrected, n = 26) within 60.0 ± 1.1 min. [(18)F]Flumazenil was isolated by preparative HPLC after the reaction was conducted under improved conditions and exhibited sufficient specific activity of 370-450 GBq μmol(-1), with a radiochemical purity of >99%, which will be suitable for human PET studies.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Flumazenil / chemical synthesis
  • Flumazenil / chemistry*
  • Fluorine Radioisotopes / chemistry
  • Hydrocarbons, Iodinated / chemistry*
  • Molecular Structure
  • Salts / chemistry

Substances

  • Fluorine Radioisotopes
  • Hydrocarbons, Iodinated
  • Salts
  • Flumazenil