Penalized feature selection and classification in bioinformatics

• Published in: Briefings in bioinformatics Vol. 9; no. 5; pp. 392 - 403
• Main Authors: Ma, Shuangge, Huang, Jian
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Oxford University Press 01-09-2008; Oxford Publishing Limited (England)
• Subjects: Algorithms; Artificial Intelligence; Bioinformatics; Biological and medical sciences; Classification; Cluster Analysis; Computational Biology - methods; Computer Simulation; Fundamental and applied biological sciences. Psychology; General aspects; Genomics; Mathematics in biology. Statistical analysis. Models. Metrology. Data processing in biology (general aspects); Models, Biological; Pattern Recognition, Automated - methods; Proteomics; Research methodology; Software; bioinformatics application; penalization; feature selection; Application; Bioinformatics; Classification
• ISSN: 1467-5463; 1477-4054
• DOI: 10.1093/bib/bbn027

In bioinformatics studies, supervised classification with high-dimensional input variables is frequently encountered. Examples routinely arise in genomic, epigenetic and proteomic studies. Feature selection can be employed along with classifier construction to avoid over-fitting, to generate more reliable classifier and to provide more insights into the underlying causal relationships. In this article, we provide a review of several recently developed penalized feature selection and classification techniques-which belong to the family of embedded feature selection methods-for bioinformatics studies with high-dimensional input. Classification objective functions, penalty functions and computational algorithms are discussed. Our goal is to make interested researchers aware of these feature selection and classification methods that are applicable to high-dimensional bioinformatics data.