[Role of animal models in cell biology]

Mainly because of their easy use, cell culture has been and remains a useful material for cellular biologist. Nevertheless, these cells loose or gain specific properties when they are cultured in vitro. Moreover, they represent only part of tissue and, a fortiori, of organs, so that results obtained in cell culture cannot strictly reflect that exist in more complex conditions. As a consequence, researcher has to use animal models, the question being now the choice of the animal model. In this paper, the main existing models are described and examples were given to illustrate their contribution to cell biology.