NFKB1 and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease: We performed single-gene GSEA analysis on 8 hub genes, and the results suggested that these functions are important processes in the pathological development of COPD, such as allograft rejection, IL6/JAK/STAT3 signaling, inflammatory response, epithelial mesenchymal transition and TNF-α signaling via NFκB (Fig. 10).