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Background  Bovine babesiosis is caused by apicomplexan pathogens of the genus  Babesia  such as  B. bigemina  and  B. bovis . These tick-borne pathogens have a complex life-cycle involving asexual multiplication in vertebrate hosts and sexual reproduction in invertebrate vectors. In the tick midgut, extracellular  Babesia  parasites transform into gametes that fuse to form zygotes. Understanding the mechanisms that underlie formation of extracellular  Babesia  tick stages is an important step towards developing control strategies for preventing tick infection and subsequent parasite transmission.    Results  We induced  B. bigemina  sexual stages  in vitro  by exposing parasites to Tris 2-carboxyethyl phosphine (TCEP). Subsequently, we identified a novel putative methyltransferase gene (BBBOND_0204030) that is expressed uniquely in all  B. bigemina  tick stages but not in blood stages.  In vitro  TCEP-exposed  B. bigemina  presented diverse morphology including parasites with long projections, round forms and clusters of round forms indicative of sexual stage induction. We confirmed the development of sexual stages by detecting upregulation of previously defined  B. bigemina  sexual stage marker genes,  ccp2  and  3 , and their respective protein expression in TCEP-induced  B. bigemina  cultures. Next, transcription analysis of  in vitro  TCEP-induced  B. bigemina  culture based on an  in silico  derived list of homologs of  Plasmodium falciparum  gamete-specific genes demonstrated differential expression of the gene BBBOND_0204030 in induced cells. Further examination of  ex vivo  infected ticks demonstrated that BBBOND_0204030 is transcribed by multiple stages of  B. bigemina  during parasite development in tick midgut, ovary and hemolymph. Interestingly,  ex vivo  results confirmed our  in vitro  observation that blood stages of  B. bigemina  do not express BBBOND_0204030 and validated the  in vitro  system of inducing sexual stages.    Conclusions  Herein we describe the identification of a  B. bigemina  gene transcribed exclusively by parasites infecting ticks using a novel method of inducing  B. bigemina  sexual stages  in vitro . We propose that this gene can be used as a marker for parasite development within the tick vector. Together, these tools will facilitate our understanding of parasite-tick interactions, the identification of novel vaccine targets and, consequently, the development of additional strategies to control bovine babesiosis.    Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (10.1186/s13071-018-3052-9) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.

Identification of a putative methyltransferase gene of Babesia bigemina as a novel molecular biomarker uniquely expressed in parasite tick stages