Further, the receiver operating characteristic (ROC) curve analysis and the confusion matrix heat map together demonstrate that RF and LASSO algorithms can provide good diagnostic performance (Figs. 4F–I). The merged dataset was used to validate the levels of expression of three Hub DERBGs (PDE8B, ESRRB, and SPRY2). In RB tumor tissue, the levels of mRNA of PDE8B, ESRRB, and SPRY2 were greatly reduced (Fig. 4J). Here, PDE8B is linked to retinoblastoma.