Abstract: Immortalized cell lines from human adipose tissue, process for preparing same and applications thereof as a study model for the physiopathology of the metabolism and particularly for obesity and diabetes, as tools for developing drugs for the treatment of disease states linked to metabolic disorders such as obesity and diabetes, and as drugs. The cell lines are formed of pre-adipocytes containing a nucleic acid fragment including at least one fragment immortalizing a viral oncogene, and at least one promoter selected from the group containing a promoter of said viral oncogene and a human vimentine gene regulatory region fragment. They express at least one of the following proteins: the .beta.1 and .beta.2-adrenergic receptors, the uncoupling protein (UCP), the glucose transporters, Glut1 and Glut 4 and lipoprotein lipase (LPL). They are capable of being converted into mature adipocytes which product fat and further express the .alpha.2.sub.A and .beta.