POLONELLI, L.&MORACE, G., 1989. Serological potential for fungal identification. Specific antigens are valuable for the identification of fungal cultures. Early attempts to immunoidentify fungi were hampered by heterogeneity of antigens, antibody preparations and use of improper serological procedures. In recent years, the double diffusion exoantigcn technique has proved to be the most effective method for immunological identification of mycelial fungus cultures. Additional advances in perfecting methods occurred with the adoption of improved reference antisera obtained either through absorption or by immunizing animals with selected immunoelectrophoretic arcs or precipitin bands (reference antigens). Preliminary studies have shown that serodiagnostically important antigens may be used for accurately and rapidly identifying hyaline as well as dematiaceous fungi. Agglutination techniques consisting oflatex particles sensitized with rabbit anti‐Cryptococcus neoformansglobulin orCandidamonospecific antisera permit the detection of specific yeast antigens in a few minutes. In spite of the great success obtained with the antigen test methods, some limitations in these procedures are apparent. The major problem derives from the occurrence of extensive cross reactions among congeneric species.Hybridoma technology permits the production of uniform and standardized antisera (monoclonal antibodies) reacting with species‐specific or strain‐specific antigenic determinants (Western blotting technique) and the availability of functional pure epitopes (affinity chromatography). The current value and limitations as well as further avenues for the advance of the different procedures are rep