A review of developmental instability, parasitism and disease. Infection, genetics and evolution

Developmental instability is reflected in imprecise development caused by perturbations of the developmental process, while developmental stability reflects the ability to avoid or reduce such perturbations by developmental means. Developmental instability has been hypothesized to reflect overall individual condition, and asymmetric or otherwise aberrant individuals have thus been predicted to be particularly severely affected by disease and parasitism. An extensive review of the literature on animals, including humans, revealed consistent relationships between increased bilateral asymmetry and elevated risk of parasitism. Parasitism, including parasitism of mothers, is a cause of asymmetry as shown by a number of experiments, and asymmetric individuals are differentially susceptible to a range of different parasites. Extensive studies of humans have shown that asymmetric individuals also suffer disproportionately from a range of different diseases including mental diseases. Studies of transgenic organisms have now demonstrated that single genes associated with disease is a sufficient cause of increased asymmetry. A number of studies have also shown that activation of the immune system causes increased asymmetry in developing individuals, and that asymmetry and immunity show negative covariation. These findings may have important implications for the study of susceptibility of hosts to infectious disease.