BackgroundThe APETALA 2/ ethylene-responsive element binding factors (AP2/ERF), are thought to be associated with plant abiotic stress response, and involved in some plant hormone signaling pathways.Trichosanthes kirilowiiis an important edible and medicinal crop, so far no research has been conducted on theTkAP2/ERFgenes.ResultIn this study, a total of 135 TkERFs were identified, these genes were divided into 4 subfamilies and clustered into 13 groups. Moreover, 37 paralogous pairs were identified, with only two having Ka/Ks values greater than 1, proving that mostTkERFgenes underwent purifying selection during evolution. Co-expression networks constructed using transcriptome data at various flowering stages revealed that 50, 64, and 67 AP2/ERF genes correlated with members of the ethylene, gibberellin, and abscisic acid signaling pathways, respectively. When tissue cultured seedlings were treated with ETH, GA3 and ABA, 11, 12 and 17 genes were found to be up-regulated, respectively, suggesting that some members of theTkERFgene family may be involved in plant hormone signaling pathways. And under 4 ℃, PEG and NaCl treatment, 15, 20 and 19 genes were up-regulated, respectively, this suggested that these selected genes might be involved in plant abiotic stresses.ConclusionsOverall, we identified 135 AP2/ERF family members, a comprehensive analysis of AP2/ERF gene expression patterns by RNA-seq and qRT-PCR showed that they played important roles in flower development and abiotic stress. This study provided a theoretical basis for the functional study ofTkAP2/ERFgenes and the genetic improvement ofT. kirilowii.Supplementary InformationThe online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12870-023-04362-0.