A New Method for Species Identification via Protein-Coding and Non-Coding DNA Barcodes by Combining Machine Learning with Bioinformatic Methods. Zhang, A., Feng, J., Ward, R. D, Wan, P., Gao, Q., Wu, J., & Zhao, W. PLoS ONE, 7(2):e30986, 2012.
doi  abstract   bibtex   
Species identification via DNA barcodes is contributing greatly to current bioinventory efforts. The initial, and widely accepted, proposal was to use the protein-coding cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) region as the standard barcode for animals, but recently non-coding internal transcribed spacer (ITS) genes have been proposed as candidate barcodes for both animals and plants. However, achieving a robust alignment for non-coding regions can be problematic. Here we propose two new methods (DV-RBF and FJ-RBF) to address this issue for species assignment by both coding and non-coding sequences that take advantage of the power of machine learning and bioinformatics. We demonstrate the value of the new methods with four empirical datasets, two representing typical protein-coding COI barcode datasets (neotropical bats and marine fish) and two representing non-coding ITS barcodes (rust fungi and brown algae). Using two random sub-sampling approaches, we demonstrate that the new methods significantly outperformed existing Neighbor-joining (NJ) and Maximum likelihood (ML) methods for both coding and non-coding barcodes when there was complete species coverage in the reference dataset. The new methods also out-performed NJ and ML methods for non-coding sequences in circumstances of potentially incomplete species coverage, although then the NJ and ML methods performed slightly better than the new methods for protein-coding barcodes. A 100% success rate of species identification was achieved with the two new methods for 4,122 bat queries and 5,134 fish queries using COI barcodes, with 95% confidence intervals (CI) of 99.75-100%. The new methods also obtained a 96.29% success rate (95%CI: 91.62-98.40%) for 484 rust fungi queries and a 98.50% success rate (95%CI: 96.60-99.37%) for 1094 brown algae queries, both using ITS barcodes.
@article{zhang_new_2012,
	title = {A {New} {Method} for {Species} {Identification} via {Protein}-{Coding} and {Non}-{Coding} {DNA} {Barcodes} by {Combining} {Machine} {Learning} with {Bioinformatic} {Methods}},
	volume = {7},
	doi = {10.1371/journal.pone.0030986},
	abstract = {Species identification via DNA barcodes is contributing greatly to current bioinventory efforts. The initial, and widely accepted, proposal was to use the protein-coding cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) region as the standard barcode for animals, but recently non-coding internal transcribed spacer (ITS) genes have been proposed as candidate barcodes for both animals and plants. However, achieving a robust alignment for non-coding regions can be problematic. Here we propose two new methods (DV-RBF and FJ-RBF) to address this issue for species assignment by both coding and non-coding sequences that take advantage of the power of machine learning and bioinformatics. We demonstrate the value of the new methods with four empirical datasets, two representing typical protein-coding COI barcode datasets (neotropical bats and marine fish) and two representing non-coding ITS barcodes (rust fungi and brown algae). Using two random sub-sampling approaches, we demonstrate that the new methods significantly outperformed existing Neighbor-joining (NJ) and Maximum likelihood (ML) methods for both coding and non-coding barcodes when there was complete species coverage in the reference dataset. The new methods also out-performed NJ and ML methods for non-coding sequences in circumstances of potentially incomplete species coverage, although then the NJ and ML methods performed slightly better than the new methods for protein-coding barcodes. A 100\% success rate of species identification was achieved with the two new methods for 4,122 bat queries and 5,134 fish queries using COI barcodes, with 95\% confidence intervals (CI) of 99.75-100\%. The new methods also obtained a 96.29\% success rate (95\%CI: 91.62-98.40\%) for 484 rust fungi queries and a 98.50\% success rate (95\%CI: 96.60-99.37\%) for 1094 brown algae queries, both using ITS barcodes.},
	language = {eng},
	number = {2},
	journal = {PLoS ONE},
	author = {Zhang, Ai-Bing and Feng, Jie and Ward, Robert D and Wan, Ping and Gao, Qiang and Wu, Jun and Zhao, Wei-Zhong},
	year = {2012},
	pmid = {22363527},
	pages = {e30986},
}

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