Boosting Multifactor Dimensionality Reduction Using Pre-evaluation

Abstract

The detection of gene–gene interactions during genetic studies of common human diseases is important, and the technique of multifactor dimensionality reduction (MDR) has been widely applied to this end. However, this technique is not free from the “curse of dimensionality” — that is, it works well for two‐ or three‐way interactions but requires a long execution time and extensive computing resources to detect, for example, a 10‐way interaction. Here, we propose a boosting method to reduce MDR execution time. With the use of pre‐evaluation measurements, gene sets with low levels of interaction can be removed prior to the application of MDR. Thus, the problem space is decreased and considerable time can be saved in the execution of MDR.