Abstract:In order to study the small auxin-up RNA (SAUR) family of maize, this study identified by the genome-wide prediction approach 91 SAUR genes which named ZmSAURs, and analyzed the gene structure, amino acid characteristics, chromosomal location and genetic evolutionof ZmSAURs. The results showed that, the SAUR gene family were unevenly distributed on the chromosome, while the chromosome 2 up to 22 ZmSAURs. The amplification pattern of the gene was dispersed replication and fragment replication. The SAUR gene family has a relatively conserved structure, e.g. a conserved RNA DNA structure and the 3D structure of the deduced proteins that generally contained three alpha helices and three beta sheets. The phylogenetic tree analysis revealed 9 branches of SAUR proteins among species. As expected, SAURs in corn and relative millet (Setaria italic) were clustered together. Thus, this information provided by this work might be useful in future functional characterization of the maize SAUR gene family.