Palladium-Mediated S-Arylation of Cysteine Residues with 4-[18F]Fluoroiodobenzene ([18F]FIB)

Transition-metal-mediated bioconjugation chemistry has been used extensively to design and synthesize molecular probes to visualize, characterize, and quantify biological processes within intact living organisms at the cellular and subcellular levels. We demonstrate the development and validation of chemoselective [¹⁸F]fluoro-arylation chemistry of cysteine residues using Pd-mediated S-arylation chemistry with 4-[¹⁸F]fluoroiodobenzene ([¹⁸F]FIB) as an aryl electrophile. The novel bioconjugation technique proceeded in excellent radiochemical yields of 73–96% within 15 min under ambient and aqueous reaction mixture conditions, representing a versatile novel tool for decorating peptides and peptidomimetics with short-lived positron emitter ¹⁸F. The chemoselective S-arylation of several peptides and peptidomimetics containing multiple reactive functional groups confirmed the versatility and functional group compatibility. The synthesis and radiolabeling of a novel prostate-specific membrane antigen (PSMA) binding radioligand [¹⁸F]6 was accomplished using the novel labeling protocol. The validation of radioligand [¹⁸F]6 in a preclinical prostate cancer model with PET resulted in favorable accumulation and retention in PSMA-expressing LNCaP tumors. At the same time, a significantly lower salivary gland uptake was observed compared to clinical PSMA radioligand [¹⁸F]PSMA-1007. This finding coincides with ongoing discussions about the molecular basis of the off-target accumulation of PSMA radioligands currently used for clinical imaging and therapy of prostate cancer.