RNAmining: A machine learning stand-alone and web server tool for RNA coding potential prediction

Published: Oct. 26, 2020, 10:02 p.m.

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2020.10.26.354357v1?rss=1 Authors: Ramos, T., Galindo, N., Arias-Carrasco, R., da Silva, C., Maracaja-Coutinho, V., do Rego, T. Abstract: Non-coding RNAs (ncRNAs) are important players in the cellular regulation of organisms from different kingdoms. One of the key steps in ncRNAs research is the ability to distinguish coding/non-coding sequences. We applied 7 machine learning algorithms (Naive Bayes, SVM, KNN, Random Forest, XGBoost, ANN and DL) through 15 model organisms from different evolutionary branches. Then, we created a stand-alone and web server tool (RNAmining) to distinguish coding and non-coding sequences, selecting the algorithm with the best performance (XGBoost). Firstly, we used coding/non-coding sequences downloaded from Ensembl (April 14th, 2020). Then, coding/non-coding sequences were balanced, had their tri-nucleotides counts analysed and we performed a normalization by the sequence length. Thus, in total we built 180 models. All the machine learning algorithms tests were performed using 10-folds cross-validation and we selected the algorithm with the best results (XGBoost) to implement at RNAmining. Best F1-scores ranged from 97.56% to 99.57% depending on the organism. Moreover, we produced a benchmarking with other tools already in literature (CPAT, CPC2, RNAcon and Transdecoder) and our results outperformed them, opening opportunities for the development of RNAmining, which is freely available at https://rnamining.integrativebioinformatics.me/ . Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info