Leopard Gecko toxicology & hazards: peer-reviewed evidence (Europe PMC)
Source: Open-Access peer-reviewed abstracts retrieved verbatim from Europe PMC (www.ebi.ac.uk/europepmc) via REST search on 2026-08-01, filtered to leopard gecko nutrition/toxicology literature. Each block below is a verbatim abstract; nothing is paraphrased.
Budding, fission, and fusion: Unveiling patterns shaping pancreatic islet size and distribution in squamate reptiles. (Journal of anatomy (2026), PMID:41316997)
> A growing body of evidence suggests that lizards are promising model organisms for studying various developmental processes. However, knowledge of pancreatic islet distribution in non-ophidian squamates remains limited. The most comprehensive accounts available to date lack three-dimensional reconstructions and often show inconsistencies. In this study, we aimed to address both aspects: first, by evaluating squamate embryos as model systems for understanding general mechanisms of pancreatic islet morphogenesis in vertebrates, and second, by conducting a comparative analysis of islet development in squamates from an evolutionary perspective. In this study, we analyzed embryos of four non-ophidian squamates representing three major evolutionary lineages: Iguania-the brown anole Anolis sagrei; Gekkota-the leopard gecko Eublepharis macularius and the mourning gecko Lepidodactylus lugubris; and Lacertidae-the sand lizard Lacerta agilis. Three-dimensional reconstructions were created from thick serial sections and high-resolution semithin sections. Pancreatic islet cells in lizards originate from ductal epithelium. Early in development, precursor cells leave the duct walls to form buds that give rise to primary islets, a process evolutionarily conserved across vertebrates. Subsequent growth involves both the fusion of islet buds and the fission of larger agglomerates. Analyzed species differ in islet distribution: The brown anole islet remains restricted to the splenic lobe, whereas the sand lizard, leopard gecko, and mourning gecko also form islets in remaining regions. In studied gekkotans, small- and medium-sized islets tended to be concentrated in close proximity to the spleen. Medium-sized islets dominate the splenic lobe in the sand lizard. Interestingly, we observed a varanid-like condition in the brown anole, characterized by the formation of a single large islet within the splenic lobe, accompanied by a concurrent reduction in islet size throughout the remaining pancreatic regions. This pattern may reflect a broader trend within Toxicofera, a clade identified through molecular studies, toward splenic lobe islet enlargement and a reduction in the size of the islets in the remaining parts of the pancreas. While the phylogenetic position may influence these patterns, our findings suggest that the spatial relationship between the spleen and pancreas, particularly the formation of large islets near the spleen, could play a more direct, possibly inductive, role in islet formation. Further detailed studies, particularly focusing on representatives of Iguania and Anguimorpha, are essential to test this hypothesis.
— *verbatim, Europe PMC PMID:41316997*
Heart ventricle regeneration in the lizard Eublepharis macularius, the leopard gecko. (NPJ Regenerative medicine (2026), PMID:41986369)
> Among mammals, injury to the heart typically results in scar formation and diminished cardiovascular function. In contrast, some teleost fish and salamanders can replace damaged heart tissue and restore overall function. For most species, however, less is known. Here, we investigate cardiac self-repair in an amniote capable of multi-tissue regeneration, the leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius). To create a heart lesion, we placed a liquid nitrogen-cooled metal probe directly onto the ventricle. The result was a cryoinjury to ~20% of the ventricle. Cardiac cryoinjury induced localized cardiac cell death, followed by an increase in cell proliferation by injury-adjacent cardiomyocytes and non-cardiomyocytes. By 100 days, the histology of the ventricular myocardium was nearly completely restored. Echocardiography and invasive hemodynamic monitoring demonstrated that global cardiac function is restored within this timeframe, verifying functional replacement of the myocardium. To explore the molecular basis, we performed bulk RNA sequencing of the injury-adjacent tissue and found that many of the molecular mechanisms common to other cardiac regenerating species, including genes involved in heart development, glycolysis, and extracellular matrix deposition, are also conserved in geckos. Taken together, this work expands the comparative framework of heart regeneration to include reptiles and indicates that the ability to replace missing or damaged cardiomyocytes is shared across >50 million years of evolution.
— *verbatim, Europe PMC PMID:41986369*
Squamate ventricular cardiomyocytes: Ploidy, proliferation, and heart muscle cell size in the leopard gecko (Eublepharis macularius). (Developmental dynamics : an official publication of the American Association of Anatomists (2025), PMID:40088131)
> <h4>Background</h4>While heart function is broadly conserved across vertebrates, the cellular phenotype of muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) varies across taxa and throughout ontogeny. Emerging evidence suggests that some attributes may correlate with the capacity for spontaneous cardiomyocyte replacement following injury. For example, among non-regenerating taxa like adult mammals and birds, cardiomyocytes are polyploid, rarely proliferate, and are large in size. In contrast, in regeneration-competent zebrafish and amphibians, cardiomyocytes are diploid, spontaneously proliferate, and are comparatively small. For other species, less is known.<h4>Results</h4>Here, we investigate these attributes in the squamate Eublepharis macularius, the leopard gecko. Using the nuclear counterstain DAPI to measure fluorescence intensity as a proxy for DNA content, we found that >90% of adult cardiomyocytes are diploid. Using serial histology and immunostaining for markers of DNA synthesis and mitosis, we determined that adult gecko cardiomyocytes spontaneously proliferate, albeit at significantly lower levels than previously reported in subadults. Furthermore, using wheat germ agglutinin, we found that the cross-sectional area is maintained across ontogeny and that gecko cardiomyocytes are 10× smaller than those of mice.<h4>Conclusions</h4>Taken together, our data show that gecko cardiomyocytes share several key cellular attributes with regeneration-competent species and that postnatal ventricular growth occurs via cardiomyocyte hyperplasia.
— *verbatim, Europe PMC PMID:40088131*
Claims (verified C1 substrings of source_file)
A growing body of evidence suggests that lizards are promising model organisms for studying various developmental processes. However, knowledge of pancreatic is…
Among mammals, injury to the heart typically results in scar formation and diminished cardiovascular function. In contrast, some teleost fish and salamanders ca…
<h4>Background</h4>While heart function is broadly conserved across vertebrates, the cellular phenotype of muscle cells (cardiomyocytes) varies across taxa and …