Design and synthesis of new ethylenediamine or propylenediamine diacetic acid derivatives for Re(I) organometallic chemistry

A general synthetic approach for a novel range of bifunctional chelating agent (BCA) for the ‘fac-[M(CO)3]+‘ core (M=99mTc, 99Tc or Re) has been developed. The strategy includes the facile preparation of these tridentate ligands possessing a tertiary amine bearing two carboxylic acid functions as coordinating site and an aromatic amino group for coupling to a biovector. First complexation study has shown that these compounds act exclusively as tridentate ligands (via the two acids and the tertiary amine functions). The convenient synthesis of these new ligands coupled with their high affinity for Re(I) make them quite promising for biomedical applications.