Identification of a prognosis-related phagocytosis regulator gene signature in medulloblastoma

Objectives: The aims of this study were to screen for phagocytosis regulator-related genes in tissue samples from children with medulloblastoma (MB) and to construct a prognostic model based on those genes. Methods: Differentially expressed genes between the MB and control groups were identified using the GSE50161 dataset from the Gene Expression Omnibus database. Prognosis-related phagocytosis regulator genes were selected from the GSE85217 dataset. Intersecting genes of the two datasets (differentially expressed prognosis-related phagocytosis regulator genes) were submitted to unsupervised cluster analysis to identify disease subtypes, after which the association between the subtypes and the immune microenvironment was analyzed. A prognostic risk score model was constructed, and functional, immune-related, and drug sensitivity analyses were performed. Results: In total, 23 differentially expressed prognosis-related phagocytosis regulator genes were identified, from which two disease subtypes (clusters 1 and 2) were classified. The prognoses of the patients in cluster 2 were significantly worse than those of the patients in cluster 1. The immune microenvironment differed significantly between the two subtypes. Finally, 10 genes (FAM81A, EZR, NDUFB9, RCOR1, FOXO4, NHLRC2, KIF23, PTPN6, SMAGP, and MED13) were selected to establish the prognostic risk score model. The prognosis in the low-risk group was better than that in the high-risk group. The model genes NDUFB9 and PTPN6 were positively correlated with M2 macrophages. Conclusion: Ten key phagocytosis regulator genes were screened to construct a prognostic model for MB. These genes may serve as key biomarkers for predicting the prognosis of patients with this type of brain cancer.