CFNCM: Collaborative filtering neighborhood-based model for predicting miRNA-disease associations

MicroRNAs have a significant role in the emergence of various human disorders. Consequently, it is essential to understand the existing interactions between miRNAs and diseases, as this will help scientists better study and comprehend the diseases’ biological mechanisms. Findings can be employed as biomarkers or drug targets to advance the detection, diagnosis, and treatment of complex human disorders by foretelling possible disease-related miRNAs. This study proposed a computational model for predicting potential miRNA-disease associations called the Collaborative Filtering Neighborhood-based Classification Model (CFNCM), in light of the shortcomings of conventional and biological experiments, which are expensive and time-consuming. The model generated integrated miRNA and disease similarity matrices using the validated associations and miRNA and disease similarity information and used them as the input features for CFNCM. To produce class labels, we first determined the association scores for brand-new pairs using user-based collaborative filtering. With zero as the threshold, the associations with scores >0 were labelled 1, indicating a potential positive association, otherwise, it is marked as 0. Then, we developed classification models using various machine-learning algorithms. By comparison, we discovered that the support vector machine (SVM) produced the best AUC of 0.96 with 10-fold cross-validation through the GridSearchCV technique for identifying optimal parameter values. In addition, the models were evaluated and verified by analyzing the top 50 breast and lung neoplasms-related miRNAs, of which 46 and 47 associations were verified in two authoritative databases, dbDEMC and miR2Disease.