New neutral and lipophilic technetium complexes based on a cytectrene moiety: Synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation

The synthesis, characterization and biological evaluation of five neutral and lipophilic 99mTc-complexes, so-called cytectrenes, obtained from N-substitutedferrocenecarboxamide derivatives are reported. N-substitutedferrocenecarboxamide starting materials were obtained in two steps, with good yield and were fully characterized by classical spectroscopic methods including X-ray diffraction analysis for one of them. Using a microwave strategy for the 99mTc-radiolabelling step, each cytectrene were obtained quickly (radiolabelling time <5 min), from modest to good yield. The 99mTc-complexes, characterized by HPLC comparison with cold rhenium complex analogues, are stable, neutral and lipophilic (log Po/w ranged between 1.8 and 2.9). Unfortunately, despite such suitable features, in vivo studies of two of them gave poor results, in terms of brain uptake. Both radiocompounds exhibited the maximum brain accumulation of 0.31% ID/g and 0.26% ID/g at 5 min post-injection, respectively, followed by a very fast washout from the brain (0.06% ID/g and 0.07% ID/g at 30 min post-injection, respectively). Although our ligand systems exhibited high stability against exchange reactions with blood proteins, the high radioactivity level in stomach, increasing with time, suggests in vivo decomposition of our complex to pertechnetate.