**5. Conclusions**

Here, we identified a total of 25 HSFs from the maize genome through genomewide investigation analysis. To better understand the roles of *HSF* genes in the maize genome, comprehensive in silico analysis was performed, including phylogenetic analysis, gene structure, and conserved protein motif analysis, gene duplication and evolutionary analysis, domain analysis, and physio-chemical properties, protein 3-D structure, GO and PPI network. Further, the expression profiles of *ZmHSFs* under various developmental stages, and stress conditions were studied. The results indicate that *ZmHSFs* play a major role in plant growth and stress responses. These discoveries will lay the basis for studying the roles of *ZmHSFs* genes in maize developmental processes and response to several stresses using different functional validation options, such as overexpression, knockout via CRISPR/Cas9 systems, etc.

**Supplementary Materials:** The following are available online at https://www.mdpi.com/article/10 .3390/agronomy11112335/s1, Table S1: Protein sequences of *Zea mays* HSFs; Table S2: The protein sequences of *Arabidopsis thaliana*, *Oryza sativa*, *Brachypodium distachyon*, and *Sorghum bicolor* HSFs; Table S3: The class specific amino acid composition of *Zea mays* HSFs; Table S4: FPKM values of *Zea mays* HSFs under different growth stages across various tissues; Table S5: FPKM values of *Zea mays* HSFs under multiple abiotic stress conditions; Table S6: GO annotation file of *Zea mays* HSFs; Table S7: Protein–protein interaction network file of *Zea mays* HSFs.

**Author Contributions:** Conceptualization, S.H. and T.M.; methodology, S.H.; software, S.H.; formal analysis, S.H., S.R. and Y.A.; resources, A.R.; writing—original draft preparation, S.H., S.R., Y.A., A.R., J.T. and T.J.; writing—review and editing, A.R. and H.S.O.; supervision, T.M.; funding acquisition, A.R. and H.S.O. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

**Funding:** This research received no external funding.

**Institutional Review Board Statement:** Not applicable.

**Informed Consent Statement:** Not applicable.

**Data Availability Statement:** Not applicable.

**Conflicts of Interest:** The authors declare no conflict of interest.
