what are the advantages and disadvantages of in vivo, ex vivo and in vitro experimentation?

Answer 1

Why?

The nature of your experiment depends on the type of information you want and your future applications.

In vivo experiments give you more info of what is really going inside the cell/organism (physical-chemical properties are usually different from that of dilute aqueous solutions; this can be a problem with in vitro studies since the constants estimated in vitro might be very different from the actual in vivo). All the cell contains several types of machinery and small molecules that can aid your experiment. However at the same time this is a disadvantage because you have too many parameters that you cannot control tightly. Thus you might not be able to account (at least correctly or fully) for what you are observing.
Moreover living organisms exhibit great variability, even with time, which can't be really controlled.

In vitro you can have better control of your system especially if you are studying soluble enzymes. You can add small molecules and check for their binding etc, while knowing that there are no other molecules present interfering. However this again can be a disadvantage since some enzymes require special conditions to work better which you might not be able to create in a test tube.
Still you can get plenty of useful info (stability, rate constants, oligomerization state etc) and use it for non vivo applications like biotechnology, tool in molecular biology etc.

Ex vivo is something in between and can help you study and manipulate temporarily tissues more easily than in vivo, though it will be a lot more difficult to keep the tissues "alive" and well performing than in vivo.

There are no clear cut things and usually combining methods is the way to get a better understanding of the whole picture.

Answer 2

Ex vivo and invitro have very similar meanings, and should be interchangable in a lot of situations. Ex vivo ability it occurs outdoors of a residing organism, yet can advise that you're operating with a higher, prepared structure from yet another organism, ie., making use of an finished liver removed from a laboratory animal in an try. In vitro ability interior a man made placing, and actually ability 'interior glass.' it is used even as describing some thing that has been maintained for your time outdoors of a residing organism, jointly with immortalized cellular strains, or different kinds of cultures.

Answer 3

good one