The oxidative stress within the rat lungs exacerbated during PM2.5 exposure but disappeared after the termination of exposure, and the upregulation of RelA/p65, deteriorated pulmonary fibrosis, and EMT in rat lungs were observed in the post-exposure phase, indicating that PM2.5 might lead to pulmonary fibrosis by oxidative stress-initiated NF-κB/inflammation/EMT pathway (Sun et al., 2019). This evidence concerns the gene NFKB1 and pulmonary fibrosis.