These two categories cannot be regarded as a pair of opposites as were the previous pairs in this list; rather, they are two aspects of all processes of biological development and can be separated only conceptually, and for purposes of convenience of description. Function is the capacity of the biological system to carry out operations. At the level of the organism, these operations include walking, swimming, eating, digesting, etc.; at the cell level, typical functions are respiring, contracting, conducting nervous impulses, secreting hormones, etc.; and at the molecular level, all functions depend on the production of enzymes, coded by particular genes. Structure encompasses all parts of the organism capable of carrying out functions localized within the body of the organism and arranged in some particular spatial pattern. Contractile cells, for example, are grouped together to form muscle, and other cells are grouped together to form elements of the skeleton; both the muscles and the skeletal elements have definite spatial relations to each other.

These two aspects of development—function and structure—are not opposed to each other in any way. On the contrary, it is obvious that the higher level functions are clearly dependent on the proper structural relations and functions of cell systems. Even at the basic cellular or molecular levels, secretion or nervous conduction essentially depends upon the proper structural relation of the subcellular elements. It is, however, often convenient to focus discussion on one or other of these two aspects of development; for instance, a study may be made into the developmental processes that bring about the production of hemoglobin or insulin by a certain kind of cell, without at the moment being concerned with structural problems. Or again, the focus may be on the results of a certain process by which a mass of cells develops into a typical hand with five digits. In such an inquiry the structural aspects are paramount.

Normal and abnormal development

If a number of fertilized eggs of a given species are provided with conditions that enable them to develop at all, they will, with extraordinary regularity, develop into exceedingly similar adult organisms. The range of conditions they can tolerate is rather wide, and the similarity of the end products surprisingly complete. There are, indeed, good grounds for recognizing what must be considered normal development. The situation is perhaps more marked in animals than in plants, since the plants produced from a given batch of seed under a variety of environmental conditions often present considerably greater variation than is commonly found among animals. Even among plants, however, the differences produced by different conditions of cultivation are usually no more than quantitative differences in size and number of such organs as leaves and flowers, so that an individual can be described as well or poorly developed rather than as normally or abnormally developed. It is only in relatively few cases that a plant develops in quite different ways under two different conditions, neither of which can be considered abnormal or normal. In certain aquatic plants, for instance, the shape of the emergent leaves is different from the leaves that develop underwater. In such cases the plant actually has two normal forms of development.

It is possible, of course, to produce abnormal organisms by submitting a developing system to stimuli not usually encountered in a normal environment, such as certain chemicals. The presence of unusual genes also may result in deviations from the normal processes of development. In the vast majority of cases such abnormalities can be regarded as resulting from failure to carry out fully the normal processes of development. Functional abnormality in the adult consists in the failure of the system to produce a certain enzyme or functional cell type; a structural abnormality consists in the unusual appearance of certain component elements or in their arrangement in incompletely realized patterns. It is extremely rare to find examples in which the abnormality consists in the addition of a new enzyme not produced in normal development, or the formation of a new structural pattern of the elements.

One very important type of development that, from some points of view, can be considered as an exception to the rule that abnormal development is nearly always retrogressive, is carcinogenesis, the production of tumours. Carcinogenesis involves a change in the developmental behaviour of a group of cells. Initially, it often involves a loss of some of the functional and structural characteristics that previously appeared in the cells. It is commonly followed, however, by the assumption of new properties, which however untoward they may be for the host animal, must be considered as a progressive type: the cells often grow faster and multiply sooner than the noncancerous cells, for example. Furthermore, the cells may undergo a sequence of changes in character and in their arrangement within the tumour. All these features can be regarded in a developmental sense as progressive.

Britannica Quiz

Biology Bonanza

In view of the great rarity of cases of abnormal development that lead to progressive changes, it seems to follow that the organs produced during the normal development of any given species actually exhaust all the potentialities of its genotype for the production of orderly functional structures. It appears that the only abnormal developments that can be produced are either displacements of normal organs, or inadequacies in carrying out normal processes, or the initiation of progressive but quite disorderly processes, as in the production of tumours.

Development of single-celled organisms

In viruses, activities consist in the production, aided by the machinery of a host cell, of units for building new virus or phage particles: development is simply the assemblage of these constituent units.

In the next higher grade of biological organization, the organism consists of a single cell. Many single-celled algae produce special forms of cells that correspond to the sex cells, or gametes; these cells may unite in fertilization, the resulting fertilized egg, or zygote, undergoing a short period of development. In many other single-celled organisms, however, reproduction takes place by the simple division of an original cell into two daughter cells. In such forms, development normally is part of the process of subdivision. It involves the remodelling of the parent cell into two smaller cells, which are then separated by the division. Something similar must, of course, be involved in the division of cells of higher organisms also. In many single-celled organisms, however, the cell contains a number of defined parts, which are arranged in very definite ways, so that the process of remodelling is very striking and easily observed. This is so, for instance, with ciliated protozoans, in which the cortex is provided with a large number of hairlike cilia or other appendages, arranged in precise patterns, and often with such other structures as a mouth or a gullet. These structures are reproduced in two identical but smaller copies during cell division. This does not necessarily imply that no other developmental processes are possible. The process of regeneration of parts removed occurs quite independently of cell division, for example.