malformation

/mal'fawr may"sheuhn, -feuhr-/, n.

faulty or anomalous formation or structure, esp. in a living body: malformation of the teeth.

[1790-1800; MAL- + FORMATION]

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▪ biology

Introduction

      in biology, irregular or abnormal structural development. Malformations occur in both plants and animals and have a number of causes.

      The processes of development are regulated in such a way that few malformed organisms are found. Those that do appear may, when properly studied, shed light on normal development. The science of teratology—a branch of morphology or embryology—is concerned with the study of these structural deviations from the normal, whether in animals or plants.

      In general, abnormalities can be traced to deviations from the normal course of development, often in very early embryonic stages. Such deviations may be caused by abnormal (mutant) genes, by environmental conditions, by infection, by drugs, and, perhaps most frequently, by interactions between these sets of causes. A general interpretation has been that one factor in many cases is reduction of the rate of development, the kind and degree of deformity depending upon the stage at which the retardation occurs. This interpretation is supported by the results of descriptive studies of anomalies, and especially by evidence from experimental teratology.

L.C. Dunn

Plant malformations

      Monstrosities, freaks, and other malformations have interested botanists for many years. There are numerous categories of such growth abnormalities in plants, and these are often related only loosely or not at all to one another.

Exaggerated growth

      Sometimes divergence from the normal represents merely a quantitative change, which is evidenced by a harmonious but exaggerated manifestation of the normal developmental processes. This is well illustrated in the so-called bakanae, or foolish seedling disease, of rice. The bakanae disease is caused by the fungus Gibberella fujikuroi. Diseased plants are often conspicuous in a field because of their extreme height and pale, spindly appearance. This exaggerated growth response was found to be due to specific substances, known as gibberellins (gibberellin), which were produced by the fungus. Evidence is now available to indicate that gibberellins, also produced by higher plant species, participate directly as an essential growth-regulating system in all higher plant species. The gibberellins of either fungal or higher plant origin stimulate the normal development of certain genetic dwarfs of maize and peas, which cannot themselves produce the gibberellins in amounts sufficient for their normal development.

      A common deformity of tobacco, called frenching, occurs in most tobacco-growing regions of the world. The advanced state of this condition is characterized by a cessation of terminal bud and stem growth. When dominance of the stem tips is lost, the buds in the axils of the leaves develop, and unusually large numbers of leaves (as many as 300) appear on a plant. The leaves are characteristically sword- or string-shaped because of the failure of the leaf blades to develop. Such plants have the appearance of a rosette. Although the cause of frenching has not yet been unequivocally established, it is thought to be due to a toxic substance produced by the nonpathogenic soil bacterium Bacillus cereus.

Alteration of floral parts

      Under the stimulus of pathogenic organisms of the most diverse kinds, the sepals, petals, stamens, or pistils of a flower may be transformed into structures that are very different in appearance from those found normally. Certain viruses can cause enlargement of the leaflike flower parts (sepals) surrounding the base of a blossom in plants of the nightshade family. The tomato big-bud virus appears to affect the sepals of the tomato flower rather specifically. These structures enlarge greatly under the influence of the virus and fuse to form huge bladderlike structures that may be 10 times or more the normal size. In the Madagascar periwinkle (Vinca rosea), however, viruses of this type bring about a green colouring in the petals, stamens, and styles; normally the petals are pink and the stamens and styles whitish. There is in this instance a retrograde development of floral parts into foliage leaves. (Findings such as these are of interest to the morphologist because they support the contention that the flower should be regarded as a modified leafy branch.)

Translocation of organs

      Plant organs may arise in unusual places as a result of the infection by certain types of pathogenic agents. The carrot-yellows virus, for example, stimulates production of aerial tubers in the axils of the leaves of potato plants. Large numbers of adventitious roots (arising in abnormal places) appear on the stems of tomato plants infected with the bacteria Pseudomonas solanacearum and Agrobacterium tumefaciens as well as the Fusarium wilt fungus and the cranberry false blossom virus.

      An extreme example of adventitious shoot formation is found in Begonia phyllomaniaca after shock. In this instance, small plantlets develop spontaneously in incredible numbers from the superficial cell layers of the leaf blades, petioles, and stems. The adventitious shoots do not arise from preformed buds but develop from cells at the base of hairs and especially from certain glands present in great numbers in young stems and leaves of this species. Although these plantlets develop a vascular system of their own, the vast majority never succeed in connecting that system with the vascular system of the host. They must therefore be regarded not as branches but rather as independent organisms.

Witches'-brooms (witches'-broom)

      Witches'-brooms, or hexenbesens, are closely grouped, many-branched structures commonly found on a number of species of trees and shrubs and caused by certain fungi. Witches'-brooms live a more or less independent existence, despite the fact that they are derived from the tissues of the host. In accordance with their independence, the witches'-brooms tend to break away from the normal correlations of the parent plant. Instead of branching out horizontally, the brooms stand as more or less erect clusters of branches. Witches'-brooms do not as a rule flower, and the vegetative buds may open several weeks earlier in the spring than do those present on healthy branches, indicating further the independence of these structures from normal controls.

      Similar structures occur in certain plant species after virus infection. These appear to result from the excessive stimulation and development of secondary shoots. The witches'-broom virus in potatoes (potato), for example, causes the infected plant to produce numerous buds on the above-ground stems of potato plants. Long, slender stolons resembling aerial roots that are covered with hairs develop from these adventitious buds.

Fasciation

      This condition is best placed in that category of teratological abnormalities known as monstrosities. Fasciation is a term that has been used to describe a series of abnormal growth phenomena resulting from many different causes, all of which result in flattening of the main axis of the plant. Although a ribbonlike expansion of the stem is often the most striking feature of this condition, all parts of the plant may be affected. As fasciation develops, the growing point of the plant becomes broader; the unregulated tissue growth results in significant increases in the weight and volume of the plant. The apical growing point becomes linear and comblike in some instances or develops numerous growing points, producing a witches'-broom effect. In still other instances, the growing points may be coiled and resemble a ram's horn, or they may be fused and highly distorted into a grotesque tangle of coils. Fasciations found in plants such as the common cockscomb (Celosia argentea cristata) and in cacti are highly prized by gardeners.

      There seems little doubt that nutritional changes due to disturbances in the growth-hormone relationships in a plant play an important role in fasciation. It has been suggested that maldistribution of growth hormones in the plant is also a cause of these abnormalities.

Armin C. Braun

Animal malformations

      Among the newborn young and embryos of man and most other species of animals are found occasional individuals who are malformed in whole or in part. The most grossly abnormal of these have been referred to from ancient times as monsters (monster), probably because the birth of one was thought to signify something monstrous or portentous; the less severely malformed are usually known as abnormalities or anomalies.

      Monsters have been regarded by primitive peoples as of supernatural origin. The birth of a malformed individual was often attributed, before the rise of modern science, to intercourse between human beings and devils or animals. The mythical (myth) beings that appear in the folklore of many peoples—races of dwarfs and giants, of sirens, mermaids, and men with a single median eye (cyclops) or leg (skiapods)—were probably suggested by observations of malformed humans. Giants and dwarfs were often classed as monsters, probably because of the prominent places they occupied in mythology.

      The objective study of malformations began with the English physiologist William Harvey (Harvey, William) (1651), who correctly attributed them to deviations from the normal course of embryonic development. Systematic scientific study, however, had to await the pioneer work of the French anatomists Étienne (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Étienne) and Isidore Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire (Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire, Isidore). Their Traité de Teratologie (1836), which laid the basis for the science of teratology, still remains a valuable source of information. Recent improvements in understanding have come from the application of experimental analytical methods and from increased knowledge of the mechanisms of inheritance—e.g., from genetics.

      In man certain gross defects (congenital disorder) in babies at birth have been shown to be associated with effects acting through the mother in early pregnancy: gross defects of eyes and ears caused by infection of the mother with rubella (German measles); and microcephalic idiocy with diagnostic use of X ray (X-ray) on the mother. The latter observations have been confirmed by animal experimentation. It has been established that higher rates of congenital malformations occur in areas of higher natural radioactivity. The effect may be induced by fallout from atomic explosions.

      The teratogenic action of many drugs (drug) has been tragically dramatized. The appearance of an alarming number of deformed, basically limbless infants, especially in Germany, in the late 1950s and early 1960s, was traced to the ingestion by pregnant women of the sedative thalidomide (known under many trade names). This drug adversely influences the developing fetus; it appears to interfere with development only in the first seven weeks of pregnancy. Hallucinogenic (hallucinogen) drugs, such as LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide), are suspected of damaging chromosomes, and their use could result in defective offspring.

      According to form, two main classes of malformations may be recognized: those with defective or excessive growth in a single body, and those with partial or complete doubling of the body on one of its axes.

Repetition or deficiency of parts

Somatic characters

      Repetition or deficiency of single parts, such as fingers or toes (polydactyly, hypodactyly [ectrodactyly], brachydactyly), is a frequent anomaly in man and other mammals. In many analyzed cases it has been shown to result from the inheritance of an abnormal gene that produces a localized disturbance of a growth process (agenesis) in the embryo. In the rabbit a recessive gene for brachydactyly (short digits) causes a localized breakdown of circulation in the developing limb bud of the embryo, followed by necrosis (tissue death) and healing.

      Absence or abnormality of whole limbs (peromelia) is less common and includes, besides clubfoot, the so-called congenital amputations once thought to be caused by the strangulation of a limb by a fold of embryonic membrane (amnion). It is probable that internal abnormalities of the bone are more frequent causes of such amputations than are strangulations. Cases are recorded of human identical twins in which both members have the same type of limb abnormality, suggesting a hereditary predisposition to this type of malformation. Besides malformed individuals with rudimentary limbs (phocomelus; having “seal-like limbs”), others have incomplete or underdeveloped extremities (hemimelus, micromelus, ectromelus).

      A rare type of malformation, but one that has always attracted special interest, occurs when the lower extremities are more or less united, as in the mythical figures of sirens or mermaids (mermaid). Such sirenoid individuals may have a single foot (uromelus), or limbs fused throughout their length with no separate feet (sirenomelus or symmelus).

      Absence of the brain at birth (anencephaly); an abnormally small brain and head ( microcephaly); and enlargement of the brain and head, sometimes to prodigious dimensions due to dilation of the ventricles (neural tube defect) by fluid (hydrocephaly (hydrocephalus)), are frequent congenital defects in man. In some cases they have been traced to defective genes, although they may also arise from accidental or traumatic processes during embryonic development. Occasionally, malformed persons are found in which a part of the brain protrudes through the cranium as an encephalocoele. An extreme variant of this type is pseudencephaly, in which the whole brain is everted and rests upon the top of the cranium like a wig.

      Cyclopian malformations with a single median eye occur rarely in man and other animals. More frequent anomalies are anophthalmia (absence of eyes) and microphthalmia (abnormally small eyes), both occasionally the result of abnormal heredity. Defective closure of lines of junction in the embryo produces malformations such as cleft palate, in which the ventral laminae of the palate have failed to fuse, and cleft lip, in which the median nasal and maxillary processes fail to unite. A frequent abnormality in human infants is spina bifida, in which the spine fails to close over and a gap is left in the vertebral column. These conditions are inherited, albeit somewhat irregularly, in man.

Sexual anomalies (reproductive system disease)

      In man and other vertebrates, male and female individuals usually have distinctive characters in addition to the primary one of producing either sperm or eggs. Individuals with both male and female functions are known as hermaphrodites (hermaphroditism). While this is the normal condition in some lower animals and in many flowering plants, it is so rare in mammals as to be regarded as anomalous. Individuals with mixtures of male and female characters (usually sterile) are known as intersexes (intersex). In man there occur two rare conditions that, according to recent evidence, represent partial sex reversal. Individuals with Klinefelter's syndrome are apparent males who produce no sperm. Many cases have been shown to have two X-chromosomes (the usual state determining femaleness) with an additional Y-chromosome (which carries genetic factors for maleness). Individuals with Turner's syndrome are apparent females without functional ovaries. The cases analyzed have only one X-chromosome (like the normal male with one X- and one Y-chromosome). These anomalies are clearly caused by disturbances in the mechanism for sex determination.

Complex syndromes

      A remarkable feature of malformations in vertebrates including man is the association of multiple abnormalities in complex syndromes. Thus, in man cleft lip, spina bifida, hydrocephalus, and polydactyly may be found in the same individual; acrocephalosyndactyly (an egg- or dome-shaped skull and partial or complete fusion of digits in both hands and feet) often occurs with harelip, contractures, spina bifida, and mental abnormalities.

      In man, individuals afflicted with mongolism (Down syndrome), also known as Down syndrome, have facial and bodily characters that permit diagnosis at or even before birth. Mongols have 47 instead of the normal 46 chromosomes. The extra chromosome is apparently responsible for the abnormal condition.

Doubling of parts

      Individuals partially or wholly double, but joined together, are represented by the rare occurrence in man of Siamese twins (conjoined twin), so-called from a famous Siamese pair exhibited for many years in the 19th century. The condition consists of identical twins joined by a bridge of tissue through which the circulatory systems communicate. Such twins probably arise by the incomplete separation of a single fertilized egg into two parts; the experimental production of such double individuals in newts has been accomplished by constricting the egg in the two-cell stage.

      In man, partially double symmetrical malformations are found. They vary from those with a single head but with neck, trunk, and limbs doubled, through those with two heads and a single trunk, to others with head, shoulders, and arms doubled, but with one trunk and one pair of legs. Such double malformations probably arise following the less complete separation of the halves of the early embryo or partial separation at later stages. A rare type is one in which there is a Janus head, two faces on a single head and body. Janus malformations have been produced experimentally in amphibian embryos by a variety of treatments in early stages. A group of cases in which the hinder end of the body was doubled from the sacrum back has been found in one strain of mice and appears to be due to abnormal heredity. Doubling of whole limbs in amphibia has been produced experimentally by injuring the limb rudiment at an early, sensitive stage.

L.C. Dunn

Additional Reading

Malformations in the plant world are the topic of George N. Agrios, Plant Pathology, 3rd ed. (1988), a college-level text that presents the effect of pathogens on host growth and functioning in chapters 3–5; R. Heitefuss and P.H. Williams (eds.), Physiological Plant Pathology (1976); P.G. Ayres (ed.), Effects of Disease on the Physiology of the Growing Plant (1981), a compilation of seminar papers; William F. Bennett (ed.), Nutrient Deficiencies & Toxicities in Crop Plants (1993); R.D. Durbin (ed.), Toxins in Plant Disease (1981), the role of microbial toxins on plant growth; John A. Bailey and B.J. Deverall (eds.), The Dynamics of Host Defense (1983), which includes an account of the responses of plants to disease-causing organisms, pp. 33–68; and James G. Horsfall and Ellis B. Cowling (eds.), Plant Disease, vol. 3, How Plants Suffer from Disease (1978), with a thorough discussion of the alteration of plant growth as a result of disease, pp. 183–200. Animal malformations including human malformations are discussed in Birth Defects Original Article Series (monthly), authoritative articles on congenital malformations and abnormalities; Mary Louise Buyse (ed.), Birth Defects Encyclopedia: The Comprehensive, Systematic, Illustrated Reference Source for the Diagnosis, Delineation, Etiology, Biodynamics, Occurrence, Prevention, and Treatment of Human Anomalies of Clinical Relevance (1990); Congenital Malformations Worldwide: A Report from the International Clearinghouse for Birth Defects Monitoring Systems (1991); Adam S. Wilkins, Genetic Analysis of Animal Development, 2nd ed. (1993); Karl Theiler, The House Mouse: Atlas of Embryonic Development (1972, reissued with changes, 1989); and Uta B. Schambra, Jean M. Lauder, and Jerry Silver, Atlas of the Prenatal Mouse Brain (1992).

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