Fluorescent-labeled ligands for the benzodiazepine receptor. Part 1: Synthesis and characterization of...

Because radioactive labeled ligands in receptor assays have several disadvantages, we synthesized a number of fluorescent-labeled benzodiazepines. Several fluorophores were attached at different positions of 1,4-benzodiazepine molecules in order to assess the impact of the fluorophores and their coupling position on the affinity for the benzodiazepine receptor. Besides the 1,4-benzodiazepines, the 1,2-annelated 1,4-benzodiazepines were also used for labeling. A metabolite of flumazenil (18), desethylflumazenil (Ro15-3890, 19), was labeled with the fluorophore 4-bromomethyl-7-methoxycoumarin, with and without the incorporation of a spacer chain, yielding the methyl-methoxycoumarin (Mmc) derivatives Mmc-Ro15-3890 (20a) and Mmc-O-CO-(CH2)3-Ro15-3890 (20b), respectively. After the synthesis, the fluorescent-labeled benzodiazepines were purified by HPLC, using an analytical RP-C18 column. For the purification of 20b, the chromatographic system was optimized, using multi-criteria decision making (MCDM) techniques. The binding affinities for the benzodiazepine receptor and the fluorescence characteristics were determined for the resulting products.