Do animal cells have vacuoles?

Question

I overheard a rather heated argument about whether or not animal cells have vacuoles.

One person said that they do, but they're much smaller than vacuoles in plant cells.

The other person said they don't. While there is something there that acts similar to a vacuole, it's slightly different. The person also noted that the only websites that say that something as a vacuole aren't credible sites (ie. not University sites, etc...)

I'm really curious as to which it is: Do animal cells have vacuoles or not?

Answer 1

They are both right.

Animal cells do have vacuoles, but they are smaller, larger in number (plant cells usually have just one or a few large vacuoles) AND serve a somewhat different purpose than those of plants. Animal vacuoles may also be called endosomes, lysosomes, or secretory vesicles.

Vacuole is basically a membrane-covered compartment (vesicle) filled with molecules, that shouldn't, right now, be in the cytoplasm. For plants this means long-term storage of water and waste products, which cannot be removed from the cell due to cell wall. For animals it means mostly taking part in exo- and endocytosis - they are much more dynamic structures.

And about some half-professional sources, here is a bit from Molecular Biology of the cell which in fact calls plant vacuoles "a kind of specialized lysosome".