A Novel Fuzzy Classifier Model for Cancer Classification Using Gene Expression Data

In the pursuit of better cancer classification, many studies have been conducted to identify the genes associated with cancer. However, the high dimensionality of gene expression data and the limited relevance of a few genes pose significant challenges to this endeavor. Existing gene selection methods yield divergent gene lists, further complicating the classification process. To overcome this issue, we developed a novel approach called Fuzzy Gene Selection (FGS), which combines the strengths of various gene selection methods in the field. FGS was developed using three feature selection techniques (Mutual Information, F-ClassIf, and Chi-squared) to rank genes based on their importance. These methods generated scores and rankings for each gene. Fuzzification and Defuzzification techniques were then applied to combine these scores into a single best score for each gene. This approach aids in identifying genes of significance in cancer classification, especially in multi-class scenarios. Classifiers often produce convergent decisions in such cases, where the predicted probabilities for different classes do not always correspond to the correct predicted class with the highest probability. To address this, we developed a novel Fuzzy classifier that leverages the contributions from each node’s traditional deep classifier. This novel approach combines the strengths of traditional deep classifiers at individual nodes, enabling the Fuzzy classifier to make more robust and informed predictions. The Fuzzy classifier (FC) has demonstrated improvements in accuracy and the generalization of the proposed algorithm to accurately classify different cancer types.