Development of symmetric O-BODIPYs with different optical properties as building blocks for the synthesis of ligands for multimodal imaging

The unique properties and the usually observed high stability of fluorescent dyes based on BODIPYs (boron dipyrromethines) predestinate them for application in medicinal chemistry. Depending on the design of the environment of the boron core, a selective 18F-fluorination is possible. Furthermore, reactive BODIPYs can be used to label bioactive molecules. We synthesized different reactive BODIPYs containing phenyl- and hydroxy substituents on boron as well as mono- and difluorinated counterparts, altering the optical properties of the dyes by rational design of the dipyrromethine ligands. The dyes may directly be used to label bioactive moieties and may be radiolabeled using a previously published protocol.