A multi-gene-feature-based genetic algorithm for prediction of operon

The prediction of operons is critical to reconstruction of regulatory networks at the whole genome level. In this paper, a multi-approach guided genetic algorithm is developed to prediction of operon. The fitness function is created by using intergenic distance of local entropy-minimization, participation of the same metabolic pathway, log-likelihood of COG gene functions and correlation coefficient of microarray expression data, which have been used individually for predicting operons. The gene pairs within operons have high fitness value by using these four scoring criteria, whereas those across transcription unit borders have low fitness value. On the other hand, it is easy to predict operons and makes the prediction ability stronger by using these four scoring criteria. The proposed method is examined on 683 known operons of Escherichia coli K12 and an accuracy of 85.9987% is obtained.