[I.B.D.]

Hello, everyone, sorry if this is in the wrong place!

I was wondering why Boc2O is highly toxic? Is it due to it's electrophilicity, and thus capability to do protein surface modification?

[Doc Oc]

I'm taking a bit of shot in the dark here, but I do know that tert-butyl esters lead to carnitine depletion, which could explain Boc₂O's toxicity.

[discodermolide]

Hello, everyone, sorry if this is in the wrong place!

I was wondering why Boc2O is highly toxic? Is it due to it's electrophilicity, and thus capability to do protein surface modification?

Well (Boc)2O is very reactive. It is used as a protecting group for amines in organic chemistry. It also reacts with other nucleophilles such as OH, and SH. It is removed by bases or acids.
The body contains lots of peptides, proteins and nucleic acids all of which can react with (Boc)2O. So I would imagine that it would interfere with the biosynthesis of proteins and amino acids and DNA, RNA etc. thus causing its toxicity.