Investigation of 18F-labelled pyrazolo[2,3-d]pyrimidines for molecular imaging of the adenosine A2A receptor with positron emission tomography (PET)

Objectives: The adenosine A2A receptor (A2AR) is a promising target for the development of PET radiotracers for molecular imaging of neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. Based on binding-affinities the 4 and 2-fluorobenzyl derivatives 1 (Ki(hA2A) = 5.3 nM) and 2 (Ki(hA2A) = 2.1 nM) were chosen for radiofluorination. Methods: Three different strategies for the synthesis of [18F]1 have been investigated. The first two are using [18F]fluorobenzaldehyde, which was applied either in a reductive amination or in a reduction followed by an Appel and benzylation reaction. The third strategy is based on a one-step radiolabelling starting from a boronic acid pinacol ester precursor employing [18F]TBAF and Cu(OTf)2(py)4 in n-BuOH/DMA. The specific binding of [18F]1 and [18F]2 on mice brain slices was evaluated by in vitro autoradiography. Results: The two- and four-step labelling strategies resulted in a radiochemical yield (RCY) of only 1.4% or 10% [18F]1 (non-isolated). Thus, [18F]1 and [18F]2 were prepared by a one-step procedure with a RCY of 52+7 or 9+1% (EOB), a molar activity of 135+64 or 132 GBq/µmol (EOS) and a radiochemical purity of >98%. In vitro autoradiography performed with [18F]2 demonstrated high binding to the striatum, a brain region with high density of A2AR, which could be blocked by selective A2A ligands. Conclusions: An efficient copper-mediated one-step radiolabelling procedure was established for two new highly affine A2A radiotracers. The first in vitro study with [18F]2 demonstrated excellent potential for the imaging of adenosine A2AR. Current work focuses on further in vitro and in vivo investigations.