NFKB1 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: In our study, NF-κB p65 expression was significantly increased in PBMCs of COPD patients compared with nonsmokers (1.01±0.12 vs. 0.63±0.09, P < .05), but not smokers (1.01±0.12 vs. 0.92±0.10, P = .60) (Fig 2A and 2B).