To further confirm the role of the hub genes in the progression of NAFLD, experimental validation was conducted in vitro and vivo. The expression of ZWINT, NUSAP1, RAD51AP1 were highly expressed in HL-7702 cells treated with FFA for 24 h as mentioned above by RT-PCR screening (Figures 5A,B). The gene discussed is RAD51AP1; the disease is metabolic dysfunction-associated steatotic liver disease.