FAIM2 is correlated with metastasis of medulloblastoma through bioinformatics analysis

Medulloblastoma (MB) is one of the most frequent malignant brain tumors in children. The metastasis of MB outside the nervous system is associated with a poor prognosis. Our study aimed to explore the genes correlated with metastasis in MB. Using the data downloaded from the gene expression omnibus database, the differentially expressed genes were identified between the metastatic and nonmetastatic samples in MB, which were undergone functional enrichment. Prognosis related genes were identified using univariate Cox regression analysis. The gene set enrichment analysis was conducted to find MB metastasis related pathways. A total of 196 differentially expressed genes were identified between metastatic and nonmetastatic samples in MB patients, and these genes were significantly enriched in 483 gene ontology terms and 29 Kyoto encyclopedia of genes and genomes pathways. In addition, univariate Cox regression analysis screened the top 10 genes (CEMIP, GLCE, ART3, GABRA5, COLEC12, LIN28B, ZNF521, IL17RB, Fas apoptotic inhibitory molecule 2 (FAIM2), RCBTB2) that were significantly associated with survival of MB, among which FAIM2 was prominently expressed in cerebral cortex, cerebellum and hippocampus. The expression of FAIM2 was decreased in metastatic MB samples, and FAIM2 harbored missense mutations, amplifications and deep deletions in metastatic samples of MB. Moreover, a total of 25 pathways were significantly activated and 41 pathways were significantly inhibited in FAIM2 high expression group compared to FAIM2 low expression group in MB patients. FAIM2 was tightly correlated with metastasis in MB patients, and the low expression of FAIM2 was associated with poor prognosis.