Abstract: One of the largest gene families discovered in plants is characterized by tandem arrays of pentatricopeptide repeats(PPRs), which play essential roles in mitochondria or chloroplasts, probably via binding to organellar transcripts. In this review, we summarized the current knowledge in the study of PPR family, which include the structure of PPR gene, the distribution in the chromosome arms and other genomes, as well as the biological function of PPR gene.