Compare the performance of multiple binary classification models in microbial high-throughput sequencing datasets.

Journal: The Science of the total environment
Published Date:

Abstract

The development of machine learning and deep learning provided solutions for predicting microbiota response on environmental change based on microbial high-throughput sequencing. However, there were few studies specifically clarifying the performance and practical of two types of binary classification models to find a better algorithm for the microbiota data analysis. Here, for the first time, we evaluated the performance, accuracy and running time of the binary classification models built by three machine learning methods - random forest (RF), support vector machine (SVM), logistic regression (LR), and one deep learning method - back propagation neural network (BPNN). The built models were based on the microbiota datasets that removed low-quality variables and solved the class imbalance problem. Additionally, we optimized the models by tuning. Our study demonstrated that dataset pre-processing was a necessary process for model construction. Among these 4 binary classification models, BPNN and RF were the most suitable methods for constructing microbiota binary classification models. Using these 4 models to predict multiple microbial datasets, BPNN showed the highest accuracy and the most robust performance, while the RF method was ranked second. We also constructed the optimal models by adjusting the epochs of BPNN and the n_estimators of RF for six times. The evaluation related to performances of models provided a road map for the application of artificial intelligence to assess microbial ecology.

Authors

  • Nuohan Xu
    College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310032, PR China.
  • Zhenyan Zhang
    Department of Imaging, Yidu Central Hospital of Weifang, Weifang, 262500, China.
  • Yechao Shen
    College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310032, PR China.
  • Qi Zhang
    Department of Gastroenterology, The Affiliated Hospital of Qingdao University, Qingdao, China.
  • Zhen Liu
    School of Pharmacy, Fudan University, PR China; Analytical Service Unit, WuXi AppTec (Shanghai) Co., Ltd, Shanghai, 200131, PR China.
  • Yitian Yu
    College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310032, PR China.
  • Yan Wang
    College of Animal Science and Technology, Beijing University of Agriculture, Beijing, China.
  • Chaotang Lei
    College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310032, PR China.
  • Mingjing Ke
    College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310032, PR China.
  • Danyan Qiu
    College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310032, PR China.
  • Tao Lu
    Laboratory of Molecular Design and Drug Discovery, School of Science, China Pharmaceutical University, Nanjing, China.
  • Yiling Chen
    Institute of Environmental and Ecological Engineering, Guangdong University of Technology, Guangzhou, 510006, PR China.
  • Juntao Xiong
    College of Mathematics and Informatics, South China Agricultural University, Guangzhou, 510642, PR China.
  • Haifeng Qian
    College of Environment, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, Zhejiang 310032, PR China. Electronic address: hfqian@zjut.edu.cn.