Automated radiosynthesis of the adenosine A_2A receptor-targeting radiotracer [¹⁸ F]FLUDA

[¹⁸ F]FLUDA is a selective radiotracer for in vivo imaging of the adenosine A_2A receptor (A_2A R) by positron emission tomography (PET). Promising preclinical results obtained by neuroimaging of mice and piglets suggest the translation of [¹⁸ F]FLUDA to human PET studies. Thus, we report herein a remotely controlled automated radiosynthesis of [¹⁸ F]FLUDA using a GE TRACERlab FX2 N radiosynthesizer. The radiotracer was obtained by a one-pot two-step radiofluorination procedure with a radiochemical yield of 9±1%, a radiochemical purity of ≥99%, and molar activities in the range of 69-333 GBq/μmol at the end of synthesis within a total synthesis time of approx. 95 min (n = 16). Altogether, we successfully established a reliable and reproducible procedure for the automated production of [¹⁸ F]FLUDA.