biostudies-literatureUnknown13Xiong C<i>Ardisia</i> plants have been used as medicinal plants for a long time in China. Traditional techniques such as morphological, microscopic, and chemical identification methods all have limitations in the species identification of <i>Ardisia</i>. For the sake of drug safety, four DNA barcodes (<i>psbA-trnH</i>, ITS, <i>rbcL</i>, and <i>matK</i>) were assessed for Chinese <i>Ardisia</i> plants using a total of 121 individuals from 33 species. Four criteria (The success rates of PCR amplification, DNA barcoding gap, DNA sequence similarity analysis and NJ tree clustering analysis) were used to evaluate the species identification ability of these four DNA barcodes. The results show that ITS had the highest efficiency in terms of PCR and sequencing and exhibited the most apparent inter- and iFrontiers in plant science860778https://www.ebi.ac.uk/biostudies/studies/S-EPMC9021757biostudies-literatureEvaluation of Four Commonly Used DNA Barcoding Loci for <i>Ardisia</i> Species Identification.PMC9021757J HELiu ZWu LZhao BXu RZhang YXiong CSun WZhu WPanjwanifalseEvaluation of Four Commonly Used DNA Barcoding Loci for <i>Ardisia</i> Species Identification.<i>Ardisia</i> plants have been used as medicinal plants for a long time in China. Traditional techniques such as morphological, microscopic, and chemical identification methods all have limitations in the species identification of <i>Ardisia</i>. For the sake of drug safety, four DNA barcodes (<i>psbA-trnH</i>, ITS, <i>rbcL</i>, and <i>matK</i>) were assessed for Chinese <i>Ardisia</i> plants using a total of 121 individuals from 33 species. Four criteria (The success rates of PCR amplification, DNA barcoding gap, DNA sequence similarity analysis and NJ tree clustering analysis) were used to evaluate the species identification ability of these four DNA barcodes. The results show that ITS had the highest efficiency in terms of PCR and sequencing and exhibited the most apparent inter- and i2022-01-01T00:00:00Z20222025-04-04T12:56:13.92Z2025-04-04T12:56:13.92ZS-EPMC90217573546345410.3389/fpls.2022.860778