A novel rhenium chelate system derived from dimercaptosuccinic acid for the selective labeling of biomolecules

This work is part of efforts to develop chelating agents for stable binding and easy conjugation of rhenium-188 to biologically interesting structures. Starting from the well-known high in vivo stability of [188ReO(DMSA)2]- we want to exploit this coordination system for the design of 188ReO(V) chelates which are stable towards re-oxidation to perrhenate and towards ligand exchange under all conditions of radiopharmaceutical procedures and applications. Therefor a new type of tetradentate ligand has been synthesized by bridging two molecules of N,N’-diisobutyl-2,3-dimercaptosuccinamide with N-(3-aminopropyl)propane-1,3-diamine. The resulting stereoisomeric tetrathiolato S4 ligand of the composition (iBu)2N(O)C-C(SH)-C(SH)-C(O)NH-(CH2)3–NH-(CH2)3–NHC(O)-C(SH)-C(SH)-C(O)N(iBu)2 forms anionic five-coordinated oxorhenium(V) complexes by ligand exchange reaction of NBu4[ReOCl4] in methanol. Without addition of base the compounds will be isolated as “betain”, [ReO(S4)], with the protonated nitrogen of the bridge as internal “counter ion”. Two representatives have been fully characterized both in solid and solution states and found to adopt the expected square-pyramidal coordination geometry. The equatorial plane is formed by four thiolate sulfur atoms, whereas the oxygen occupies the apical position. The orientation of the metal oxo group is exo in relation to the carbamido groups in both isomers. Both complexes are stereoisomeric regarding the junction of the triamine chain.