Bayesian ABC-MCMC Classification of Liquid Chromatography–Mass Spectrometry Data

Abstract

Proteomics promises to revolutionize cancer treatment and prevention by facilitating the discovery of molecular biomarkers. Progress has been impeded, however, by the small-sample, high-dimensional nature of proteomic data. We propose the application of a Bayesian approach to address this issue in classification of proteomic profiles generated by liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry (LC-MS). Our approach relies on a previously proposed model of the LC-MS experiment, as well as on the theory of the optimal Bayesian classifier (OBC). Computation of the OBC requires the combination of a likelihood-free methodology called approximate Bayesian computation (ABC) as well as Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) sampling. Numerical experiments using synthetic LC-MS data based on an actual human proteome indicate that the proposed ABC-MCMC classification rule outperforms classical methods such as support vector machines, linear discriminant analysis, and 3-nearest neighbor classification rules in the case when sample size is small or the number of selected proteins used to classify is large.