It’s always nice to start the New Year with a splash and this year fluorous chemistry has one. The cover of the January 5th, 2009 issue of Angewandte Chemie International Edition features the article by Prof. Véronique Gouverneur and co-workers describing the use of fluorous tags in the synthesis of 18F radioimaging agents. A previous F-Blog post summarizing the research is available by clicking here.
In short fluorous tagged sulfonates were used as electrophilic precursors to 18F containing compounds which were produced through nucleophilic substitution with 18F anion. 18F is only produced in a cyclotron and is valuable stuff. In addition, it has a half-life of around 110 minutes, so syntheses using 18F need to be quick and efficient. Typically an excess of sulfonate is used in order to fully ensure that all of the 18F available goes toward the desired product. It then becomes necessary to be able to quickly separate the excess starting material from the 18F substitution product. With a fluorous tagged starting material that becomes easy to do using fluorous solid phase extraction (FSPE) purification.
As seen the cover has a watch face emphasizing the time component of 18F syntheses. Around the face are some of the various molecules that were produced in the article using the fluorous tagged sulfonate along with some of the components of the strategy including FSPE purification.
Congratulations to all of the authors of the paper for having their work highlighted by this cover story.