PCIF1 and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis: First, we explored the models by which different m6A modification patterns are associated with IPF diagnosis and identified five diagnostic m6A regulators from a lung tissue-derived dataset, including PCIF1, RBM15B, CBLL1, SND1, and FMR1. The diagnostic accuracy was subsequently validated on BALF and PBMC-derived datasets.