Plants respond to abiotic and biotic stresses through a number of biochemical and physiological reactions. Stresses inducible genes can be classified into two groups, i.e. functional genes that directly protect against stresses and regulator genes that regulate gene expression and signal transduction in the stress response. In our previous study, an EST from our drought related SSH library (suppression subtractive hybridization library) was obtained, which had a high similarity to AtCKS2in Arabidopsis. In the present study we cloned the cDNA homologous to CKS2, named ZmCKS2, by using in silico and homology-based cloning techniques. ZmCKS2 had an ORF of 267 bp and encoded 88 amino acids. The deduced protein of ZmCKS2 was predicted to contain a CKS (cyclin-dependent kinase regulatory subunit) structural domain, which was highly conserved in eukaryotes kingdom. The promoter of ZmCKS2 (about 2 kb upstream of ZmCKS2)was predicted to contain important regulatory elements including core promoter elements and drought, high salt, cold, ABA, light regulation, copper and oxygen responsive elements. Real-time quantitative PCR (qRT-PCR) analysis revealed that ZmCKS2 had different expression patterns in different organs. It was highly expressed in ears while its expression was very low in roots and leaves at seedling stage. qRT-PCR was also performed to investigate the expression profiles of the ZmCKS2 under different abiotic stresses such as drought, low temperature, high salt, MeJA (methyl jasmonate), and exogenous ABA (abscisic acid). Under drought or MeJA treatment, ZmCKS2 showed an up-regulated expression pattern. However, under cold or ABA treatment, the gene showed a down-regulation expression pattern. Under NaCl stress ZmCKS2 showed no obvious change. These results revealed that ZmCKS2 might be involved in multiple pathways of plants responding to different environmental conditions.