Due to the difficulty in morphological identification the development of reliable molecular tools for species distinction is a priority for piroplasma. Previous studies based on 18S rRNA and other gene sequences provided a backbone for the phylogeny of piroplasma. However, it is difficult to discriminate species in a comprehensive sample. Here, the abilities of eight DNA regions including 18S rRNA, 28S rRNA, internal transcribed spacer (ITS) regions and COI genes, have been compared as candidates of DNA barcodes for piroplasma. In total, 484 sequences of piroplasma were collected from this study and GenBank. The eight proposed DNA regions were evaluated according to the criterion of Consortium for the Barcode of Life (CBOL). From this evaluation, ITS2 had 100% PCR amplification efficiency, an ideal sequence length, the largest gap between the intra- and inter-specific divergence, 98% identification efficiency at the genus level, and 92% at the species level. Thus, we propose that ITS2 is the most ideal DNA barcode based on the current database for piroplasma.
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